The City Where the Dead Voted Out the Living

Just outside San Francisco lies a tiny town of 1,500 residents—and 1. 5 million “silent” neighbors.

Imagine a city where your vote is literally worth 1,000 times less than a granite headstone. That’s the unnerving reality of Colma, California, a quiet 2.2-square-mile town south of San Francisco where an estimated 1.5 million deceased residents vastly outnumber the 1,507 living souls, a chilling ratio of nearly 1,000-to-1. This isn’t a ghost story; it’s a bombshell exposé on how unchecked real estate power and political maneuvering carved out a necropolis, revealing a dark truth about who truly controls the land in the Bay Area.

The Original Sin of San Francisco Real Estate

The story of Colma is a brutal lesson in political economics. It began over a century ago in San Francisco, where a booming population and soaring land values led city officials to a ruthless conclusion: the dead were occupying prime real estate. In 1900, the city banned new burials, and by 1914, eviction notices were sent out to all existing cemeteries.

The political machine decided that the land was “too valuable to be wasted on the cemeteries,” a phrase that should anger every resident struggling with today’s housing crisis. The city literally voted its dead out.

The $10 Price of Dignity

The human consequences of this land grab were immediate and devastating. Relatives were given a cruel choice: pay a $10 removal fee to have their loved ones relocated to the new “City of Souls” in Colma, or watch them be unceremoniously dumped into a mass grave.

Many couldn’t afford the fee, and their ancestors—the pioneers, the Gold Rush workers, the forgotten—were lost to history. This act of grave injustice reveals a stark truth: in the Bay Area, even in death, your dignity is tied to your wealth.

Life in the City of the Silent

Richard Rocchetta, Secretary/Treasurer of the Colma Historical Association, is one of the few who calls this place home. He drives his Toyota through the sprawling memorial parks—they don’t call them cemeteries—past the final resting places of celebrities like baseball legend Joe DiMaggio and denim king Levi Strauss.

The town’s famous, dark-humored motto is “It’s great to be alive in Colma!” But behind the joke is a unique, stable economy. The town’s 16 cemeteries, along with dozens of funeral homes and floral shops, are the economic engine. This morbid industry provides the tax base that keeps the town running, a strange kind of political stability purchased by a million-and-a-half silent partners.

The Power Dynamic That Still Haunts Us

Colma’s existence is a stark reminder of the extreme power dynamics that shape California. The fact that the dead take up nearly 75 percent of the town’s land—securely zoned for eternity—highlights an extraordinary victory for preservationists, albeit unintended.

Think about the political implications. The cemeteries, as massive property owners, essentially dictated the town’s founding in 1924, ensuring their land would never be seized for a new tech campus or a high-rise apartment complex. They established a permanent, unassailable political bloc—the Necropolis Lobby—that protects their turf from the same land-hungry forces that created Colma in the first place.

This is a lesson you must internalize: When politicians decide land is “too valuable” for a public good—whether that’s a park, affordable housing, or a quiet resting place—it’s a signal that an exclusive, wealthy interest is about to seize control. The evicted dead of San Francisco are the original victims of the Bay Area’s crisis of conscience.

What is your city willing to sacrifice when the price of real estate becomes too high? Are you sure your final resting place won’t become a future development site?

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Original Source: USA Today

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