Mango Orchards to Oberoi Mall GOREGAON MUMBAI'S
PROPERTY JOURNEY

Before Bollywood found it. Before the Bangur Group arrived from Kolkata. Before 520 acres of forest became Film City. Before Lokhandwala rose and Oberoi Mall gleamed , Goregaon was four villages surrounded by mango and guava orchards.

The land was owned by a Goregaon family. The air smelled of fruit. The population was small enough to know its neighbours. And the railway line , which had arrived as far back as 1862 , connected this quiet suburb to the rest of Bombay, waiting for someone to realise what it was worth.

This is the story of how India's independence, a government land acquisition, a film studio, a housing group from Kolkata, and a government dream project built one of Mumbai's most consequential residential markets , piece by piece, decade by decade, between 1947 and 1990.

Four Villages and an 1862 Railway

Goregaon's railway connection in 1862 is striking , this was during British India, 85 years before independence. The Western Railway had reached this cluster of four villages when most of what we call Mumbai today was either island, swamp, or forest. Yet for the next eight decades, the station sat there, underutilised, serving a semi-rural population that had not yet been touched by the urbanization wave.

The four villages , Pahadi, Goregaon, Aarey, and Eksar , were defined by agricultural land, Koli fishing communities near the creek, and the kind of unhurried pace that proximity to the railway had not yet disturbed. The dominant landholdings were family orchards. The most significant was the mango and guava plantation of the Topiwala Desai family , a holding so large and so central that its fate would determine what Goregaon became after independence.

This small detail reveals something important: Goregaon had a civic intellectual culture even before it had apartment buildings. Keshav and Mrinal Gore were socialists who became community pillars. Their legacy explains why Goregaon's early housing colonies had names like Unnat Nagar (progressive locality), Motilal Nagar (after Motilal Nehru), and Shastri Nagar (after Lal Bahadur Shastri) , political and social idealism baked into the addresses.

Filmistan's arrival in Goregaon in 1943 is one of Indian cinema's most significant locational decisions , and it had a direct impact on Goregaon's real estate. Here was a working studio, employing hundreds of technicians, set designers, makeup artists, light operators, and film extras , all of whom needed to live nearby. Goregaon's first non-agricultural, non-government residential demand came from the film industry, not from industry or government.

Sashadhar Mukherjee and Ashok Kumar chose Goregaon because SV Road land was affordable, the railway was accessible, and the location was far enough from Bombay's density to have the space a studio needed. In choosing this site, they inadvertently chose Goregaon's identity , the suburb would carry the entertainment industry DNA in its soil from that day forward, through Filmistan, through Film City, through the decades of media companies that followed.

The Topiwala Desai Land , A Government Decision That Shaped a Suburb

This single government act , the acquisition of the Topiwala Desai family's mango and guava plantation and its transfer to the Bombay Housing Board (established in 1948 per MHADA official history) , is the founding event of modern Goregaon. Without this decision, the prime central land of Goregaon might have been developed piecemeal by private interests or remained agricultural. Instead, the government got control of large contiguous land and used it to build the planned housing colonies that gave Goregaon its distinctive character.

The Housing Board's mandate was clear: provide affordable homes for the working and middle classes of newly independent India. In Goregaon, this translated into the Nagar colonies that would define the suburb's residential landscape for the next four decades , Unnat Nagar, Motilal Nagar, Jawahar Nagar, Shastri Nagar, Siddharth Nagar, Piramal Nagar, BEST Colony , all on the western side, all named after the civic and political heroes of independent India.

The Automobile Decade , Workers Arrive

The 1960s brought a new kind of resident to Goregaon , the industrial worker. Automobile manufacturing and its ancillary industries (parts, accessories, servicing, tooling) grew significantly in Mumbai's Western Suburbs during this decade. Goregaon, with its train connectivity and affordable housing board colonies, became a natural destination for workers and supervisors from these factories who needed affordable, well-connected homes.

Meanwhile, Filmistan was in its final years of active production. The studio that had launched careers and created classics through the 1940s and 1950s produced its final original film , Payal Ki Jhankaar , in 1968 and ceased in-house filmmaking. The studio would continue as a rental shooting location, but Goregaon's identity as a "film area" had shifted from production to property: the film technicians, editors, set designers, and production managers who had lived near the studio remained in the neighbourhood even as production wound down.

By the late 1960s, Goregaon West had a functioning residential ecosystem , government colonies on the west, a working-class catchment from automobile industries, a remnant film industry community, and the ever-present railway line serving daily commuters to South Bombay. But the suburb was still, in the words of the historical record, "sparsely populated." The explosive phase was still a decade away.

Bangur Group Arrives from Kolkata , Mid-1970s

The Bangur Group's decision to develop in Goregaon West in the mid-1970s is a significant moment in Mumbai real estate history. This was a Kolkata-based industrial and real estate group recognising, from across India, that Mumbai's Western Suburbs had unrealised potential. They brought capital, planning, and a systematic approach to cooperative housing that the piecemeal government colonies had lacked.

Bangur Nagar , named directly after its developer , was designed as a proper planned residential neighbourhood, not a government housing colony. It had a coherent layout, MG Road connectivity to Goregaon station, and a variety of housing societies from Type A to Type U. The naming of the oldest societies , Jal Padma (lotus of water), Jalnidhi (treasure of water), Jal Kalyan (welfare through water) , reflects the 1970s cultural practice of naming housing societies after auspicious, prosperous themes. These societies are now over 50 years old and are prime candidates for redevelopment , which will itself be the next chapter of Goregaon's property story.

1977 , Film City Is Born: 520 Acres Change Everything

The establishment of Film City in 1977 was the single most significant event in Goregaon's property history after independence. At a stroke, the Maharashtra Government created the largest entertainment production complex in Asia on 520 acres of Goregaon East's forested land , and with it, an entirely new and permanent employment ecosystem that would drive housing demand for decades.

Film City did not just bring film crews for shooting. It created a permanent neighbourhood of film industry professionals who chose to live in Goregaon East because their workplace was there. Directors, producers, sound engineers, choreographers, costume designers, make-up artists, light technicians, set builders , all of them needed homes. Goregaon East, which had been the less-developed side of the suburb until this point, suddenly became a destination in its own right.

The contrast with Filmistan is instructive: where Filmistan was a private studio that eventually wound down, Film City was a government-backed permanent institution on 520 acres. Its employment base was not subject to the fate of a single studio's financial decisions. It would be there in 1990, in 2000, in 2026 , and every year it operated, it generated residential demand in Goregaon.

The 1980s , From Sparse to Dense

The 1980s housing boom in Goregaon was not a gradual rise. It was a sudden explosion. Three forces converged simultaneously: Film City's workforce was now established and seeking better housing, the MHADA colonies had created a middle-class community that attracted private builders, and Mumbai's overall economic confidence under the post-Emergency liberalisation created appetite for new construction. Private developers arrived in Goregaon's East and West with a speed that the suburb's infrastructure , roads, water, drainage , struggled to keep up with.

How 1980s Buyers Came to Goregaon

The 1980s Goregaon buyer had one defining characteristic that earlier buyers had not: they had a choice. By the 1980s, multiple builders were advertising simultaneously. The competition for buyers was real, and marketing had evolved from station boards and word-of-mouth to something more organised.

• Times of India Saturday property supplement: The 1980s saw TOI develop a dedicated weekly property section , "Property Times" , where Goregaon builders competed with Malad, Borivali, and Kandivali for buyers' attention. A 2 BHK in Gokuldham would be advertised alongside a 2 BHK in Kandivali at a similar price point.
• Film City connection: Builders explicitly marketed Goregaon East properties to film industry professionals. "5 minutes from Film City" was a selling point used by builders near Film City Road , the same way today's listings say "5 minutes from BKC."
• The "Nagar" brand equity: Having a flat in a named Nagar , Bangur Nagar, Gokuldham, Yashodham , carried social capital. These were addresses, not just locations. A buyer in 1985 would proudly say "I live in Bangur Nagar" , it signified middle-class respectability.
• Builder site offices at the station: Goregaon station's surroundings were filled with small site offices and temporary hoardings from builders. Buyers arriving by local train were met by salesmen who would walk them to the building , sometimes the same day.

The Price Journey , 1947 to Today

Complete Infrastructure Timeline , What Built Goregaon