Baylen Linnekin on Ending the Food Protectionism Racket

Recently a San Francisco neighborhood merchants' group, the Valencia Corridor Merchants Association, announced it would seek a temporary ban on new restaurants in the up-and-coming neighborhood. "As a merchants association, it's our job to protect the restaurants already on the corridor," said Deena Davenport, a neighborhood salon owner who also served as past president of the neighborhood association, in remarks to the San Francisco Examiner. "Our goal has always been to keep the diversity on the street."

There's a term for the exclusionary goal of protecting existing restaurants against new competitors, writes Baylen Linnekin, and that term is not diversity.