company town

Definitions

1. 1

   A town, city, or other municipality in which a single large business has a controlling…

   A town, city, or other municipality in which a single large business has a controlling influence over the economy and, sometimes, over the societal structure and the local government.

   • The workmen lived farther along the line, in a sort of company town, which at present greatly resembled a Western mining-camp, though ultimately it was to be a bungalow town.
   • Now here we have a company town depicted by our authority in the UMW [United Mine Workers] as one of the worst imaginable company towns, where the employer ran the schools, the local administration of justice, and even the churches.
   • Back in the days when Poughkeepsie was a company town and the company was International Business Machines, it wasn't unusual for 18-year-olds in Poughkeepsie to go straight from high school to I.B.M.

The neighborhood