company town

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

Noun

company town (plural company towns)

1. (idiomatic) 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 local government.
   • 1917, Arthur B. Reeve, chapter 5, in The Treasure-Train:

     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.

   • 1946 May 29, Westbrook Pegler, “Fair Enough”, in Reading Eagle, page 4:

     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.

   • 1994 October 30, Penny Singer, “Bob Detmer, a Visionary Video Maker”, in The New York Times‎^[1], →ISSN:

     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.

   • 2010 February 10, Michael Schuman, “At Toyota's Home Base, Townspeople Are Worried”, in Time‎^[2], archived from the original on 2012-09-13:

     The firm's sprawling factory complexes lie only a short distance from the town center, and, as in any company town, the paychecks of Toyota employees are the main source of support for its restaurants and shops.

Translations

Translations

• Russian: моногород (ru) (monogorod)
• Swedish: bruksort (sv) c

See also

• company store

References

• “company town”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.