Is Kolkata a good place to live in 2026?

People who want arts, theatre, Park Street dining, and festival intensity fit best when they accept humidity and uneven infrastructure. Salt Lake is the older planned township with Sector V IT offices and metro links; New Town is newer, roomier, and greener, but more vehicle-dependent for many errands. Ballygunge, Alipore, and Golf Green suit families who want south-side prestige. Budget bands sit in Kolkata cost of living.

Compared with Delhi, Kolkata usually wins on rent and loses on corporate expat scale. Compared with Hyderabad or Chennai, the tech story is thinner outside Sector V and New Town parks, while the cultural calendar is thicker: Festival culture.

Treat summer humidity as a daily comfort test: Humidity and Summer heat. Deposits of a few months remain common: How to rent a home. Metro helps Salt Lake and central hops; New Town weeks often need a scooter or cab: Living without a car.

Social life skews coffee-house conversation, pandal seasons, and neighbourhood clubs more than Indiranagar pub density: Social life. International-school and specialist hospital depth is narrower than Mumbai or Delhi-NCR for some curricula, so verify early if you move with children.