There are many small communities, often isolated, that are not incorporated communities in America, to which the meaning of unincorporated in this context, simply means that there is no municipality for that community, signifying that there is no local government within that community. This means in most unincorporated towns, that there is no local mayor, no local police or fire protection, no local sewage, no local street lights, and so forth. In most cases, unincorporated towns have services that would typically be provided by their own municipality, provided instead by the county that they are part of, or a city or town that they are contiguous to, to which their property taxes would pay for these services, so that, in effect, although these towns are without a local voice they would still have police, fire and other protection services available to them.
There are, however, another type of unincorporated town, the type that was more prevalent over a century ago, in which, typically the town was created out of nothing in a remote part of the State, specifically as a consequence of the extraction of minerals or other natural resources contained within that specific region. In the first place, because these towns were literally created overnight, none of typical township requirements would be in place, and if each of the residents of such a town were almost all either dependent upon or part of the workforce of the industry that was the reason behind the town being formed initially, there were obvious reasons why that company wouldn't readily want to incorporate, to which the very first reason, would be control.
The problem for any company, that is the main employer of workers in a very small community, is that the sharing of democratic power is not typically something that they have a real interest in doing, because even if the company believes that they have candidates and legislators under their control, this is still an area that can spin out of their control, creating great strife and conflict within that community. So then, rather than creating a municipality, with a mayor, justice, and legislators, it is far more desirable for that company, to simply, and effectively, run things entirely itself. That means often control or management of ownership of the entire infrastructure of the community, from housing, to plumbing, to utilities, to stores, to schools, to medicine, and so forth. This control is even more effective when instead of paying employees with actual USA issued currency; they are paid instead with company scrip, effectively making the employees and residents of such a town--wards of that town.
The people of a company town, without a municipality, effectively have neither a voice, nor local recourse to voice their viewpoint or to effect change. While, the residents are not prisoners in the sense that they are locked into that town, they will find that should they choose to vacate the township that they will leave with no more than they came to the town with, which means, in effect, that they have labored for the company and received nothing of lasting value in return.
So, in short, anytime that people within a small community have no voice, because that voice has been compromised effectively by the powers that control that community, liberty dies.