page_title: Company town
section_title: Finland
hierarchical_section_title: Company town / Present-day company towns / Finland
caption_attribution_description: Suomi: Näkymä Kettumäeltä Kuusankosken keskustan yli Kouvolassa.English: A view over the centre of Kuusankoski in Kouvola, Finland.
context_page_description: A company town is a place where practically all stores and housing are owned by the one company that is also the main employer. Company towns are often planned with a suite of amenities such as stores, houses of worship, schools, markets and recreation facilities. They are usually bigger than a model village.
  Some company towns have had high ideals, but many have been regarded as controlling and/or exploitative. Others developed more or less in unplanned fashion, such as Summit Hill, Pennsylvania, United States, one of the oldest, which began as an LC&N Co. mining camp and mine site nine miles from the nearest outside road.
context_section_description: Kuusankoski in Finland, formerly also known as "the paper capital of Finland", is a prime example of the decline many company towns have had to deal with when the company itself struggles. The town relied on three paper mills owned by Kymmene Corporation from the 1870s until 2005 when two mills, Voikkaa and Kuusaa, were shut down, leaving only the Kymi mill operating. An estimated 5% of the local population had been employed by the two closed mills and Kymmene's decision left the town in socioeconomic chaos. Kuusankoski's independent status ended in 2009 when the town was consolidated into the regional capital, Kouvola.
caption: Former company town Kuusankoski in Finland
exif: {"Image Make": "FUJIFILM", "Image Model": "FinePix S5600", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Digital Camera FinePix S5600   Ver1.00", "Image DateTime": "2013:07:30 16:24:49", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image Copyright": "", "Image ExifOffset": "294", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 50, 53, 48, 0, 0, 2, 0, 2, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1306", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "9756", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/320", "EXIF FNumber": "28/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2013:07:30 16:24:49", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2013:07:30 16:24:49", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "2", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "833/100", "EXIF ApertureValue": "5", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "222/25", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "17/5", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "108/5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2592", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1944", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1158", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "4442", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "4442", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "3", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}