Comment by enaaem

I believe American rail companies used to built whole towns. I am kinda surprised why a hyper capitalistic country like the US never developed this concept further?

It's brilliant if you think about it. By building super convenient rail transport you essentially lock people into your territory and businesses. They go by foot so they can't get far. If they want to go somewhere else, they probably have to take your rail network and only end up at your other properties. With some aggressive horizontal integration, you can essentially built a small kingdom.