Most studies on Southeast Asian cities have emphasized the capital cities (or “primate cities”), which are the cornerstones of their nation-building, while local cities have not received due attention. One of the basic assumptions underlying the present study is that a theoretical model can be built which will prove fruitful in the study of “middle-scale society,” While we already have a “micro” (conventional anthropological) model based on data from rural areas, and a “macro” model deriving from the sociological studies of metropolitan areas, we do not have an efficient model with which we can deal with societies of intermediate scale and complexity. Such a model or theory is of crucial importance for the understanding of the current social processes of Southeast Asian countries, since local middle-scale societies constitute the frontlines as well as the centers of regional development. <br> As part of a larger research project on the local cities in Southeast Asia, this paper focuses on the city of Ujung Pandang in South Sulawesi, Indonesia, where I did a four-month fieldwork in 1983-1984. The city, known as Makassar before 1971,developed as an international port town from the sixteenth century, and is now the regional administrative, economic and cultural center with a population of approximately 700,000. Ethnic multiplicity is a fundamental characteristic of the city. Within the setting of this “ethnic mosaic,” the present paper focuses particularly on the Toraja migrants whose homeland is located 300 kilometers north of the city, and examines their communities in the fringe “kampong” sector of the city. Though the history of their merantau (“migration”) to the city goes back to the 1920s, it has been accelerated since 1965, internally by ecological pressures in their homeland, and externally by the political stability and the improvement of land communication under the Suharto regime. Their migration can be considered as a sort of “ethnic expansion” taking place within the framework of Indonesia's modernization. The Toraja migrants' experiences of the city described and analysed in the paper illustrate some aspects of the socio-cultural dynamics of the present Indonesian local cities. <br> From the Toraja migrants' point of view, the city is not a well-integrated “moral community.” Despite the physical existence of the city of Ujung Pandang, there seems to be no Ujung Pandang society or Ujung Pandang culture as a whole: what there is is an assemblage of miniature ethnic societies of South Sulawesi, such as the “Toraja community” and the “Bugis community.” This feature of the “ethnic mosaic” or “pluralism” is apparently inconsistent with the socio-cultural model of conventional (“functionalist”) social scientists. “Middle-scale society,” being located between the nation as an ideological moral community and rural society as a substantial moral community, presents a different social type from either. I posit it deserves special attention in our quest for a better understanding of urban societies in Southeast Asia.