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VALERIE WADE: I
realized that there

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is just so much in cemeteries
that people don't realize.

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Sure, there's the
sentimental value.

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There's lots of
information, lots of data.

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And they also serve
to anchor communities

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in very important ways.

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The erasure of cemeteries
or the neglect of cemeteries

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is important.

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And it says something about
which communities we value

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and which communities
we don't value.

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Where people who do care
about their family cemeteries

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or their neighborhood
cemeteries,

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they just may not have the
resources or the people power

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to keep them up.

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What does that mean
for that local cemetery

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and that neighborhood?

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So these are the questions
that I've been wrestling with.

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Because I think
that climate change

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has these ripple effects.

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People don't automatically
think about these things.

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But it does have
a cultural impact,

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it does have an economic impact.

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People who have more
resources are able to bounce

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back from these things.

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The way society was
set up, it effectively

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meant that some people
are worth remembering

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by nature of having
the resources

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to have a big nice headstone.

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And other people were
not worth remembering.

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So it's just a
reminder like, wow,

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like our great great
grandparents may

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have led these wonderful lives.

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But a headstone was a luxury.

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Katrina really highlighted
that, caskets just floating.

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And people's relatives
just in the water,

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just history has
literally been uprooted

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and is literally
being swept away

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in the aftermath of this storm.

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So if the people who maybe
established a cemetery all

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live miles and miles
away now, well, what

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happens to that small cemetery?

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All the people who cared about
it aren't near it anymore.

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So in some ways like
the growth of this city

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and changing economics
does directly

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affect lost cemeteries.

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It's just that I think we
caution against just building,

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building, building without
thinking about the long term

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effects of that building,
like we're seeing with climate

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change, like we're
seeing with like I

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say, all the
concrete in Houston,

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in a city with a lot of water.

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We're just asking to
just pause and think

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about maybe some
more sustainable ways

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that we can grow.

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And I think that
that's the intersection

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between preservation and
building for the future.

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