I got lost on the way out of a cemetery in Bucks County, Pa. yesterday. This was slightly embarrassing since I was escorting relatives from out of town who were completely unfamiliar with the local roads. I knew the roads. My problem was getting out on to the road.
Like many “memorial†parks, this one had roads that go in circles. Its sweeping access lanes are supposed to mingle with the greenery to create a pastoral feeling. Never mind that you are in a machine using fossil fuels to negotiate this “green†space. These sorts of burial grounds arose as alternatives to church cemeteries both to accommodate non-believes and to emphasize death as a wholesome form of rest, one not necessarily connected to church teaching about the fall, sin, death, and the resurrection.
These “secular†cemeteries were also designed to be more user friendly in that they functioned as parks where not only survivors of loved ones would go to continue to pay their respects on anniversaries and holidays but even those unrelated to the deceased might go to enjoy the scenery.
What any observer of urban history knows, though, is that grids function much better than cow paths when designing a city. William Penn’s original plan for Philadelphia, with streets running East and West between the Delaware and Schukyl rivers, and others running perpendicularly North and South between South and Vine Streets, made the city much easier for pedestrians, developers, and even drivers. Compared to Boston or New York which as villages relied on existing Native American and livestock trails, Philadelphia was a real city.
Church cemeteries (as well as military) tend to follow Penn’s ideas about arranging space – rows, grids, symmetry. They are more efficient by providing more space for bodies and they accommodate more visitors in search of loved ones.
Ironically, memorial parks tend to follow the patterns of suburban developers like William Levitt, who bequeathed to us Levittown. 
His subsections with pastoral names like Stonybrook, or Farmbrook, or Holly Hill, also included circular drives that surrounded winding streets to give, apparently, the featureless design of his homes a natural and inviting feel. What he didn’t account for was how many of the new residents in Levittown would get lost, like I did yesterday, because of curving lanes and cookie cutter facades.
Old Life 