Merebank, which was designated under apartheid as an Indian area, is located in South Durban near the municipal airport. Merebank and its neighbour, Wentworth, are located in the midst of a heavy concentration of petro-chemical industries.

Beginning in the late 1950s, many small-holder families of diverse racial origins were forced off their land in Merebank to make way for industrial development and planned, formalised housing. There also were numerous shack-dwellers living on land owned by the City. Some Indian residents were re-housed in formal houses on the land where they were already living, a rare case in Durban of residential formalisation without relocation.

Approximately 10% of the Durban Indian community lives in Merebank. Merebank's housing includes many pleasant and substantial middle class houses in the main part of the community, although many parts of the community are still crowded, with a number of sub-leased "outhouses" and garages behind many homes. More expensive and spacious housing of professionals and business people are on the top and inland slope of the seaward dune.

Merebank is a residential patchwork bounded by the Umlazi Canal and the adjacent industries of Sapref, Shell Chemicals, and Sasol Fibres; the Southern Freeway and South Coast Highway; the ENGEN refinery and its transport corridor of Duranta Street; the Coloured Wentworth community; the bluff that separates most from the sea and its breezes; and the sea itself. In addition, the community is defined by the noise and emissions of large jetliners landing and taking off immediately overhead. The community is bifurcated by the Southern Freeway and further segmented by the Southern Sewerage Works, Stanvac Canal, railway lines, the Mondi industrial road, and the giant and noisy Mondi paper mill -- all adjacent to residential neighbourhoods.

Merebank has had strong civic organisations, an important record of support for the ANC during the anti-apartheid struggle by many residents, and a unique history of mobilising on environmental issues, which included organizing even during the apartheid era and urging the inclusion of Section 23 of the 1994 South African Constitution that guarantees protection to human health and well-being from environment pollution.

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