I'm in Columbus, Indiana, a city that exists because of industrialization. Several of the companies that have been here have left marks, but none as much as the Irwin Sweeney Miller family in the form of modern architecture. Because of former Cummins CEO J. Irwin Miller's belief that he needed to create a place that was more attractive to his recruits from the east coast and Chicago to build his workforce, we have dozens of notable buildings, many schools and government buildings. His reach extended to public art and endowment of arts organizations. But the most obvious is the architecture which comes from some of the most respected designers of the last 60 years. 7 National Historic Landmarks in a city of 45,000 people is just crazy for a place without a battlefield or other historic presence.
Since we're talking about Urbanism this week, are there othe examples of someone taking an existing small town, not a suburb of a large city, and forming it into something very different that survived their own legacy?
Edit for background: This is the video that is shown before the architecture tour. I haven't seen numbers lately, but it wouldn't surprise me if 8000 people take the tour each year.
I'm not sure if it's quite the thing you're looking for, but there are a few towns/suburbs in the UK that were pretty much built from scratch to house workers for various industries. Salt Aire in Yorkshire, Port Sunlight in the Wirral and Bournville near Birmingham are ones I can think of from the top of my head. There was a fashion for industrial tycoon types to show their philanthropic side by providing opportunities for education and 'enlightenment' as well as jobs and housing. Things like museums, libraries and art galleries were built and many are still there. I'm afraid I don't have any references per se, I've just visited these places and picked up a few tidbits! Similar can be said for many industrial towns and cities in the UK, various public buildings are often the result of rich industrialists philanthropy. Not to mention the fact that many industrial buildings such as warehouses have become iconic landmarks and are often repurposed, such as the Tate gallery in Liverpool (old dock warehouse) and the Baltic gallery in Gateshead (old flour mill).