[edit for autocorrect of addition to edition]
There are pros and cons to greater regulation. Established cities like SF, DC, and NYC, limit the number of taxis because there are literal hard limits on all the gov't provided functions around taxi's, including regulation of 'expectation of legitimacy,' and managing traffic congestion. In the case of hotels and to a lesser extent restaurants, there are zoning, housing, and infrastructure investments that cities have made from a gov't perspective and a private perspective that, AirBnB and FoodTrucks throw out of whack. Reading this article you see how much regulation FoodTrucks are now starting to come under, to try and bring their 'perceived' quality in line with that of a restaurant. It's hard to find arguments against this, other than, it is now demonstrably harder to be a new business. The same is not yet happening with airbnb style 'hotel' rooms because there is more money and the players are bigger.
I think the real problem is that the gov't is poorly organized to deal with the wisdom of crowds. I don't need a hotel regulation agency as much for an airbnb type rental because the economic interests of the 'landlord' are such that my 'review' really counts. personally, I'd prefer airbnb, food trucks, and uber to their respective old-world counterparts, precisely for the reason that it's much more difficult for regulatory capture given those de-centralized models. But there are legitimate arguments on the other side, around investment, community goals, and 'safety'. Unit economics in each of these cases make it much harder to systematically screw the customer. Now if only we could disrupt telecom this way, so I can stop dealing with Comcast.
Existing groups use their connections to politicians to get laws favorable to them and not favorable to competition. It has nothing to do with society becoming more conservative as it ages
Don't get me wrong; there's plenty of room for "decent Mexican places," but if too many of them open, then they might all end up with not enough customers to survive. Limiting the number of restaurants means that there will be enough customers for most of them.
Too bad. That's not the business of government, its the effect of market. They may all go out of business if people stop liking Mexican. Government shouldn't be picking winners that's the people's business.
Limiting the number of restaurants means that there will be enough customers for most of them."
There's no such thing as 'keeping competition down to reasonable levels.' That's why we have a market. The optimal supply of restaurants and customers should be determined by the market, not government or protectionist incumbents. Unless you can make a legitimate case that allowing more food trucks, restaurants, or whatever else harms the health or security of society, there is zero reason to limit their numbers.
From macro issues like regulating the financial services sector to micro issues like antitrust and competition policy, consumers like you and I can be made better off via regulation. For example, competition policy is one of the most productive types of government regulation that takes place. Disregarding the DoJ's treatment of online poker [to date], the FTC and the DoJ have been doing some pretty great things over the last few years[1] (e.g. $500 million in fines issued breaking up LCD price fixing scheme; continued effort towards addressing the current and future problems of privacy on the Internet)
In the US, the goal of competition policy is to promote the economic welfare of CONSUMERS, however a good policy would be one that increases the economic welfare of both consumers and producers. Game theoretically, figuring out how to make a policy that increases the welfare of both sides of the market is a mechanism design problem.
[1] Relative to almost all the other sectors of government.