Urban areas are by nature concentration points of people and economic activities, drivers of socio-economic change and are focal points of growth and development. Most South Africans find themselves in urban areas with continued high rates of migration out of the northern provinces and east coast provinces towards Gauteng and Western Cape. These shifts and changes in the population increasingly put pressure on existing housing and service delivery infrastructure and resources – especially in metropolitan areas. In spite of these population shifts towards the metropolitan areas, many rural areas remain densely populated with a continued expansion of the built environment. However, this expansion primarily results in asset formation in the form of a dwelling and is unfortunately seldom accompanied by the expansion of economic activities and poverty reduction. The main objectives of this report are to (1) investigate the extent to which spatial densification in human settlements has been achieved, (2) consider changes in racial integration in residential housing areas since 1994, (3) provide a summary of trends over time in relation to the kinds of housing occupied by households, as well as the basic services that they have access to, (4) consider housing provisioning by the state in the form of RDP or state-subsidised housing units and (5) to look at travel time to work in relation to various settlement and housing types as well as household income quintiles.