A closer analogy would be to an oilfield "man camp" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbGg57r9wK0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbGg57r9wK0) — temporary housin

A closer analogy would be to an oilfield "man camp" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbGg57r9wK0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbGg57r9wK0) — temporary housing for a bunch of people who have signed up to do a few months' stint of work in a job that requires them to be in the middle of nowhere to do that job (because that's inherent to the nature of the job.) They're a lot like military encampments, actually. The real question is why these factories are built in the middle of nowhere. There's no clear need for it; no reason they couldn't just be built in cities. They're not heavy industrial polluters or anything that would make people not want them in city limits.