For those of you that don’t remember what company towns were, here’s a recap. Beginning almost 200 years ago, mining companies, textile factories and other industries were having major growth spurts. And just like today, they couldn’t find enough labor to meet the demand for their expansion.
The solution was simple. They built villages where they owned the housing, the grocery and dry goods stores as well as other essential services. They rented these homes at a very affordable cost to attract workers and their families.
There were a lot of stories of wrong-doing by the companies, not the least was throwing people out of their rented homes with no warning if the employee talked about forming a union. Thankfully over the decades local and state laws were passed to stop this and companies began turning over some of the town’s services to the workers and even allowed non-workers to rent the homes.
I grew up in Juniata Terrace, a series of row houses built by the American Viscose Company in Lewistown, PA. My father didn’t work for the company but he did rent the grocery store from them and gave credit to the Viscose employees which were paid by the company at the end of each month.
Today major corporations are building affordable housing within areas where the employees they need can’t afford to live in.
Facebook plans to build a new campus with 1,500 residences, a walkable retail district, a grocery store, and a hotel for its employees and the public in Menlo Park, California.
Meanwhile, Amazon’s new HQ2 in Crystal City, just outside DC is planning to turn parts of the nearby countryside into a company town much like they did in Seattle.
In 2021, Nevada Governor, Steve Sisolak announced legislation intended to boost the state’s economy by allowing tech companies to create their own forms of local government. The plan would set up “Innovation Zones”, where tech companies would be able to take over the governing capacity of local counties. This includes the power to introduce taxes and set up government services. The old-time company town is still alive!
Look for modular factories to begin building more of these company towns as onsite labor is drying up for many big developers.
Disney is building a village only 15 minutes from Disney World in Orlando and Universal did the same thing nearby.
