My understanding is that during the Industrial Revolution, it was pretty common for factory complexes to be surrounded by residential areas that were owned by the factory, and the workers would live in them. They are generally portrayed as the exemplars of authoritarian capitalism, but what were they really like? How did living standards compare to non-company towns? Did workers prefer to live in company towns or non-company towns?
I don't know about preference, but there were definitely the good and the bad. The good established fully-provided-for towns including a town doctor, general store, school for children and it's own little mini-economy. There was much camaraderie as everyone was linked to the industry, and, as long as the industry kept strong, the town was relatively happy. There was, however, the assumption that kids born in the town would stay and join the business so you might have a bit of a time getting out.
The bad intentionally priced everything high, ensuring that you were forever in debt to your local general store/school/doctor so you would have no choice but to continue to work for the mine/factory because you were still in debt to the company. Usually these ones were far enough from anything else that the employees would have no other choice than to buy from the company store/services.
Regardless, a mining town/factory town could have been very similar to a company town anyways. Everything was so linked back to the industry, all businesses existed to serve the industry and its workers and its success was linked to how well the industry was going. The only thing you didn't have was the really fucked manipulation that the bad company towns had.