What Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi” Can Teach Us About Preserving the Land

Nov 09, 2022 • Op-Eds • By Noah Wurtz

One sight that has become conspicuously absent from modern life is the small, biodiverse farm. In the 35 years before Big Yellow Taxi was released, the United States lost over five million farms, or more than half of the farms that existed in 1935. While the United States certainly has never been a paradise—most of these lost farms were stolen from Native Americans in the first place—this loss has had dire consequences for rural economies. As small farms disappear, we’ve seen an explosion of industrial farming practices that favor monoculture over diversity, productivity over soil health, and profit over community well-being.