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Portfolio > Alternative Investments > Real Estate

America's looming burial crisis

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The practice of burying our dead is itself dying. Real estate for cemeteries in highly populated areas is running out, which poses a problem for boomers. In fact, it’s already a problem for cities like London and Hong Kong. London has started promoting grave recycling programs. Hong Kong has found a solution in mechanized columbaria, where a loved one’s ashes are retrieved from a library of thousands of urns and delivered to a private viewing space for visitation with family and friends.  One solution in the U.S. could be designated landscapes for scattering ashes of loved ones after securing a permit for a small fee. This could, in turn, create a small municipal funding stream.