Urbanization in developing country does not necessarily means a good thing. An immediate transformation along with the population boom and the property industry transform the city and its people extensively. This applies to the kampung settlement in the Indonesian city. There was a time when kampung’s people can serve food to any guest, a family member came to the sick people house for a care-treatment, or merely collective inhabitants keep an eye to the safety of the neighborhood, all for nothing but basic courtesy within each other. People always proud when their kampung’s neighborhood is memorably friendly to live in, thus the sentiment that the city is a “harsh” place is a common notion that lurks behind the growing urbanization.
The growing tourism industry along its property business is the power engine of Yogyakarta’s urbanization. Despite the emergence of modern restaurant, shopping mall, and hotels, there comes the resistance and protest from the citizen as they does not have any control towards what is happening that transform their living environment in undesirable way. Inclusion and participatory no longer respected, the power to change the city lies in the hand of the view. This research tackle the posed problem by synthesizing idea derived from the socio-cultural perspective to redistribute again the shaping power for urbanization to the people. The do-it-yourself patterns from the social tradition, the communication for deliberation, and the local-wisdom arguments for place making are explored as an alternative strategy to the recent urbanization. It aims for the more endogenous urbanization that shaped the living environment into a friendly city.