Planning for the Disposal of the Dead

Abstract

Problem: Concurrent with the dramatic increase in the nation's elderly population expected in coming decades will be a need to dispose of larger numbers of our dead. This issue has religious, cultural, and economic salience, but is not typically considered a planning problem. Although cremation rates are rising, burial is projected to remain the preferred alternative for the majority of the U.S. population, and urban space for cemeteries is limited in many communities.

Purpose: We outline issues related to cemeteries and burial, describe a number of alternatives to traditional cemeteries, and explain how planners might usefully contribute.

Methods: This work is based on a literature review.

Results and conclusions: Alternatives to the cemetery are emerging, but remain limited. Some require changes to laws or public perceptions. Planning practice could be advanced by case studies showing how to integrate burial grounds into existing communities and how to alter public policy to permit alternatives to burial.

Takeaway for practice: As population demographics change, environmental concerns intensify, and demand for urban space grows, future land use decisions will have to balance a diverse set of social, cultural, and environmental expectations, including taking into account burial practices. There are only a handful of alternatives to traditional burial in a cemetery: burial in a multiple-use cemetery; natural burial; entombment in a mausoleum; cremation, with the ashes preserved in a columbarium or scattered elsewhere; and burial in a grave that will be reused in the future. This article provides planners with information about each of these alternatives, examples of how the planning process can address disposal of the dead, suggestions for avoiding environmental externalities, and ideas for better integrating the landscapes of death into community life.

Research support: None

Keywords:

• cemeteries
• planning
• land use
• burial
• death

Acknowledgments

Carlton Basmajian ([email protected]) is an assistant professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at Iowa State University. His research focuses on the historical relationship between regional planning and urban decentralization.

Christopher Coutts ([email protected]) is an assistant professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at Florida State University. His research focuses on the relationship between planning choices and human health outcomes, specifically the effect of ecologically sensitive land use practices on community health.

Notes

1. Federal cemeteries owned and operated by the Veteran's Administration are planned at a scale beyond the influence of local and state governments (Backhus, 1998). Although we address the role of the federal government in existing regulations, we have limited our focus to the private and municipal burial facilities that most planners are likely to encounter.

2. Currently, the University of York in the United Kingdom houses a Cemetery Research Group that supports research focusing on cemeteries, burial, and the death industry.

3. Only two Planning Advisory Service (PAS) reports on planning for the deceased have been published: Cemeteries in the City Plan (American Society of Planning Officials, 1950), and The Multiple Use of Cemeteries (American Society of Planning Officials, 1972). The first is still a useful resource, as it outlines the many issues associated with cemeteries such as eminent domain and perpetuity, and also summarizes the factors that need to be considered when projecting local needs for cemetery space. The data are out of date, but the issues and methods are still very relevant.

4. In conducting the survey, “…Wirthlin Worldwide contacted by telephone nearly 1000 adult Americans age 40 and older including an oversample of African Americans and Hispanics. The sample was selected to ensure an appropriate state-by-state representation of the nation's population, a mixture of urban, suburban, and rural areas, diverse age and ethnic groups and various religious beliefs, with a 40% male and 60% female gender distribution because women are known to be the primary decision-makers regarding remembrance and memorialization.” (Cremation Association of North America, 2005, n.p.)