Company towns and the gospel of Here

Learning from deeply rooted people; picking up insight from the edges of empire

The first U.S. city I ever lived in wasn’t a company town but often felt like one. Most company towns are dominated by one or a few private corporations. The main employer is also the main service provider.

In my town, most people worked at or around a university, a medical school, and two or three regional hospitals. Education or medicine—those and the…