In Charlotte there is a cemetery from the mid 1800's when it was deep rural country. There are now new condos and such around it. The problem here is that the land containing the graves has no known owner. Interments were long, long ago and forgotten for decades. Was it church that disbanded? Slaves of nearby farmer? Was it separated informally from other property and never clearly registered? Inherited and then abandoned? Without ownership the grave issue is the lesser of the problems

I was an undergrad at ECU when the mall - then known as Pitt Plaza - was built. The wall around the cemetery was shorter and I always paused for a moment of respect when going into the Record Bar. My mother's family was from that area and I wondered if any of the occupants were relatives. Greenville was pretty rural in those days . When you walked out the back door of the movie theater you stepped into a soybean field.

Paraphrasing George Carlin: The two biggest wastes of land are cemeteries and golf courses. Build affordable housing on both.

Realizing you're focused on malls, but two things: Carter Finley Stadium parking includes 2 cemeteries, and a developer wanted to dig up many (like hundreds, possibly thousands) of indigenous burials down at the coast....and the General Assembly tried to let him do it.

I enjoyed this article. Like another reader, from the headline it was going to talk about older malls being demolished or repurposed. But the actual article was more compelling. In the town where I used to live in Georgia, there was an old cemetery nestled into a modern shopping area behind a Best Buy. I thought it strange. But it's interesting to learn it's common practice all over. Your notes about practices in other countries was interesting, too. Great read, once again.

At first I thought this was about abandoned, or nearly abandoned malls. Then I hoped the graveyard I knew about would be mentioned, the one outside Wallace Wade Stadium.