Over 3,000,000 people die in the U.S. alone every year. I get that there are other options than burying like cremation, but it seems logical that we would have a shortage of cemetery space. Further, you don’t see cemeteries expanding or new ones being built.
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Leasing grave space is not standard in the US. Almost uniformly there is an expectation that grave space is “forever”. Yes, that creates an insoluble problem, because cemeteries as we currently construct and operate them are only good for one thing, and they are blocking off a lot of land that would be desirable for other purposes.
In the US at least, there is OVERALL no shortage of land for new cemeteries. But there definitely is a shortage near centers of population. This is a big headache for the National Cemeteries (veterans’ cemeteries) specifically, as they must fulfill a commitment to provide burial spaces for veterans and dependents, but the amount of land they need for that is tremendous and hard to find in places near where people actually live.
On top of that, there are significant barriers to entry for new cemeteries to be founded. Many communities don’t want cemeteries and there is a large regulatory burden.
Individual cemeteries can often do quite a lot to “infill” their existing space with a greater density of interments, especially by adding spaces for cremated remains. They can develop formerly unused areas within their boundaries. This helps for a while but it ultimately just kicks the can down the road, as you will still wind up with an undesirable land use that is very difficult to change in the future.
The reason I call the land use “undesirable” is that vast expanses of lawn with flush markers have almost no inherent interest for the larger community (any trace of variety or interest in the landscape has been stripped away in an attempt to cut maintenance costs) and they are certainly an ecological wasteland. And maintenance costs always, always, ALWAYS get ahead of “perpetual care” funding arrangements, sooner or later. This is largely because of labor costs, though other costs are subject to inflation too.
I personally would like to see more emphasis on landscapes with ecological function as memorial landscapes, but although so many people really like the IDEA of “natural burial,” in practice it is a tiny, tiny cottage industry and most people are not getting buried that way. The ever-rising expense of standard American cemeteries will drive more and more families to choose cremation instead. Meanwhile, existing cemeteries will eventually fill up and/or become economically unsustainable (not necessarily in that order) and will become white elephants burdening municipalities when they are eventually blighted or just plain abandoned. I would like to see more old cemeteries converted to wildlife refuges, but unfortunately that does take money and work – you can’t just stop mowing the lawn and expect something wonderful to result. Blight is what results if you do nothing, in ecological terms as well as cultural. You will have to remove invasives and replant with natives and that’s hugely expensive.
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