This paper explores which items people living in South African informal urban settlements regard as essential for an acceptable standard of living, in the context of the high levels of service delivery protests in urban areas. Comparisons are made with people in rural former homeland areas which are shown to have similar levels of deprivation and service delivery dissatisfaction and yet have few such protests. People in informal urban areas rated infrastructure-related items higher than people in rural former homelands. It is argued that inequality and people's reference groups could help explain these attitudinal discrepancies and the locations of protests.