Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
California City is most like what I have in mind. Their failure was mostly the lack of demand. How would demand be increased? A large company moving there? a tax free zone?
Better living conditions for workers(cheap houses), freedom to expand, etc. Also the company would own all surrounding land so essentially it would have a monopoly.
Anyways guys, what do you think would be the biggest challenge - utilities, building, etc?
Biggest challenge would be getting people to move there, along with politics. Utilities and building are well-defined engineering problems the company could hire people to solve. Transportation infrastructure would be a problem too (again, politics). And there's the issue of bringing in the support people -- presumably this town will have a grocery store or two, entertainment, retail, etc, all with people not working for the main company. How do you get those people to move in? It's a solvable problem, but it'll take a lot of money.
But getting people to move there is the biggest problem; if Apple built a company town in Middle of Nowhere, South Dakota, chances are most of its employees would work elsewhere rather than move there. That's why most historical company towns were located somewhere they _had_ to be; you can't move a mine or a dam.
I believe it was Atlantic-Richfield (ARCO) that started a small town (Wright) about 40 miles south of my small city (population then around 10K, now 30K). Before it was built, it was 110 miles from here to the nearest town south (except for one with a population of 5).
Planning started in the mid-late 70s to provide a housing alternative for those working in the area's new coal mines, which were being constructed at the time -- also for oil workers or anyone else who wanted to live in a smaller town. I can't recall how much ARCO actually did, but I think they planned it, put in a few streets with utilities, built a small mall and a few public buildings. From there they turned it over to the newly incorporated city, and I believe to a few investors/developers. The county built schools, a fire station, library, medical center, golf course, rec center, etc., etc. It's never grown much, as most people prefer to live in the small city to the north. Population today (35 years later) is around 1800. Median household income is $85-$90K, but the homes don't reflect that. Most homes are probably 1200-1800 sq ft and would sell for $180-280K.
We're still waiting for the state to improve the highway from here to there and further south to the next town. I mean, they've improved it several times, but it's still a 2-lane highway with a few passing lanes here and there. It's one of the busiest highways in the state and by far the most dangerous to travel -- not because of Wright but because of all the workers commuting to mines and oil fields.
Better living conditions for workers(cheap houses), freedom to expand, etc. Also the company would own all surrounding land so essentially it would have a monopoly.
Anyways guys, what do you think would be the biggest challenge - utilities, building, etc?
"Company towns" aren't economically feasible in this day and age, which is why there are few, if any, actually left in existence. Even company-owned housing in ordinary towns is a rarity when it used to be quite common. Company towns developed primarily in remote areas near natural resources, primarily minerals, because mining companies needed housing to attract workers -- and frequently keep them there. Sometimes manufacturers, especially steel makers, built "new towns" that offered worker housing but these were located closer to transportation, markets, and population centers. Homestead, PA and Lackawana, NY were two examples of this. Gary, IN might also have been built this way, too.
Today, companies are NOT free to operate or expand on their own land without meeting federal, state, and local environmental and zoning regulations. Moreover, companies would also have to pay for local roads, and public schools through taxes, because, guaranteed, no state or local government is going to give a company tax breaks for a self-contained area that contributed nothing but school children and traffic to the local area because all the employees were forced to shop at the company store.
Coal and Steel companies did it for years. Sparrows Point outside Baltimore was built by Bethlehem Steel. You lived in housing 'appropriate' for your job classification. Everything was owned by the company. Stores, churches, schools (although the schools were part of the Baltimore County Public Schools the land and buildings were owned by BethSteel) In fact when the mill wanted to expand they could just take over an area of town and relocate the people. At least one of the churches was closed because of mill expansion. The town was run by a city manager who was a company employee. The town was policed by Company Police not the County Police.
Today, companies are NOT free to operate or expand on their own land without meeting federal, state, and local environmental and zoning regulations. Moreover, companies would also have to pay for local roads, and public schools through taxes, because, guaranteed, no state or local government is going to give a company tax breaks for a self-contained area that contributed nothing but school children and traffic to the local area because all the employees were forced to shop at the company store.
Would the local tax rate be higher for the company at any random town or at their new 'company' town? I'm wondering because companies like Google and Apple are having expansion problems now and looking for more space. I wonder if one day they will just give up on Silicone Valley and go 50 miles east into the desert and make their own town.
Mountain House between the Bay Area and Stockton...
It's been years in the making with grand plans... some have worked... some have not.
Latest is a threat to water supply from the drought... seems the town is too far down the water rights pecking order.
Yes, Mountain House was what immediately came to mind although there are no businesses there really. There's small commercial building with convenience store, dentist, and real estate office in it which is a fairly recent addition. Otherwise it's just an incredible example of a bedroom. I don't get it. Take the worst of suburban and rural living and you've got Mountain House. Drive 7 miles to Tracy for everything but you live in a suburb. Grand plan of new urbanism flopping even harder than Elk Grove. At least Elk Grove just flopped and ended up looking like a pretty nice conventional suburb.
Redmond is also kind of Microsoft-town. If you include the contractors, they account for over half the workforce in Redmond. But then Redmond also grew before Microsoft relocated. It was really just a bedroom before Microsoft came. That's kind of the thing though, Microsoft or Apple aren't really worried about cost of real estate. They also pay enough that relocating to Mountain House wouldn't be real popular, even with how crazy expensive Silicon Valley is. I mean, if big companies relocate they relocate like Toyota did to Plano Texas or Microsoft did to Redmond. The Woodlands, Plano, Redmond are all examples of that. Really the businesses just followed the workforce more than moved to nowhere in all those cases though. It doesn't help the cost of living any though. Redmond/Bellevue, The Woodlands, and Plano are now all among the most expensive areas to live in their respective metros. Plano is still fairly cheap but in all of them they take care of that by doing big houses. Average SQF of listings in Plano is 3,460.
The old company town towns were more a matter of practicality than simply throwing a dart and that's where they built it. There were some exceptions to that. Pullman, IL, is the usual. It was located outside of Chicago for no real reason other than utopian ideals. Again, reality wasn't that hot. What it meant in reality was you lived somewhere that wasn't all that great because your employer forced you to live there and paid a premium to do so. It didn't work and eventually was abandoned. Free market generally does a better job than ivory tower planning in practice.
The old company town towns were more a matter of practicality than simply throwing a dart and that's where they built it. There were some exceptions to that. Pullman, IL, is the usual. It was located outside of Chicago for no real reason other than utopian ideals. Again, reality wasn't that hot. What it meant in reality was you lived somewhere that wasn't all that great because your employer forced you to live there and paid a premium to do so. It didn't work and eventually was abandoned. Free market generally does a better job than ivory tower planning in practice.
What I'm thinking of is a company owned town for the benefit of the employees. The company owns the local supermarket, restaurant, etc. and get all profits from them. Instead of keeping the profits, they repay the employees thus the employees get a higher wage. If a large manufacturing company with say 1000 employees relocated to the middle of no where and opened a Walmart they owned, things could work out well. Lets say the workers and their families amount to 2500 people(the average household size is 2.58) and they all move to the town. With outside jobs coming in to service the employees, the town could get 3k+ people. Obviously there are issues like the spouses of the worker's jobs however they could be easily solved by being relatively close to a large city(45m-1h away). To prevent workers from just settling in the city the company could build their own houses at a bulk rate and sell them at a very discounted price(for no profit) or rent them and redistribute the profits among the workers. I know this is all hypothetical but if the company had the money for roads, schools, relocation, etc do you guys think it would be possible?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
