The Rise and Fall of the Company Town

One of the most famous and ultimately ill-fated experiments in single-industry urban planning was Pullman, Illinois. In the 1880s, George Pullman, manufacturer of luxurious railroad sleeping cars, purchased 4,000 acres south of Chicago to build a massive manufacturing plant and a town to surround it.

Pullman envisioned a perfectly harmonious environment free from the strikes and poverty of big cities. He built beautiful brick homes with indoor plumbing (a luxury at the time), a grand hotel, an arcade, and a church. However, Pullman ruled as a feudal lord; independent newspapers were banned, town meetings were forbidden, and leases could be terminated at ten days' notice.

When the Panic of 1893 hit, Pullman slashed wages but refused to lower rent in the town. This led to the violent Pullman Strike of 1894, a watershed moment in American labor history that ultimately forced the company to divest itself of the residential properties, proving that absolute corporate control over civic life was unsustainable.

A contrasting approach was found in Hershey, Pennsylvania and Bournville, England. Both were built around chocolate manufacturing by philanthropic Quakers (Milton Hershey and the Cadbury family, respectively).

These towns practiced "welfare capitalism." They provided high-quality housing, extensive green spaces, schools, and amusement parks. The goal was genuine social improvement coupled with the belief that a healthy, happy workforce was a productive one. Today, these towns still bear the strong architectural imprint of their founders, though they function as normal municipalities.