A company town is a place where practically all stores and housing are owned by the one company that is also the main employer. Company towns ...
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are often planned with a suite of amenities such as stores, houses of worship, schools, markets and recreation facilities. They are usually bigger than a model village ("model" in the sense of an ideal to be emulated).
Some company towns have had high ideals, but many have been regarded as controlling and/or exploitative. Others developed more or less in unplanned fashion, such as Summit Hill, Pennsylvania, United States, one of the oldest, which began as a Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company mining camp and mine site nine miles (14.5 km) from the nearest outside road.
