Philadelphia.
The decline of the mafia and the turning of NYC into sterile and safe place go hand in hand. Long gone are the days tight neighborhoods and people knew each other for generations. Now the neighborhoods are mostly full of what I call tourist, the recent college graduate from Iowa who wants to spend a few years living in the "hood," or the fresh off the boat immigrant whose sole purpose is to make enough money to build a house back home, or move off to a better area. That is why there can't really be anymore Westies or much of mafia in NYC. Who are they going to shake down or take bets from? Suzie Jones from Lincoln, Saif from Chittagong? I'd be willing to bet there are many neighborhoods in NYC these days where people hardly know their neighbors. There was a concerted to push out the middle/working class of NYC, so it could become a playground for yuppies, and the fresh off the boat immigrants are there to provide the cheap labor for them.
Interesting theory. But if you follow mob cases in New York, even over the last decade or so, there is still A LOT of gambling and shakedowns going on.
The whole idea of the break up of the old Italian neighborhood, while true, hasn't exactly effected the NY Mafia in all the ways people have assumed.
