Simply put it was easier to keep the grip on a smaller area/city with almost no competition than having to knock shoulders with other 4 crime families in one of the world’s largest cities. Shaking down “cow towns†along the rust belt and the Midwest wasn’t that much of a task for them.
Not to mention that the whole small town America vibe made local mafiosi the top dogs right off the bat.
Smaller/rural centers don’t get the same scrutiny larger cities and metropolitan areas get. Public officials are less likely to get on the feds’ radar, thus they’re easier to grease. Omertà is more stable when literally everyone can trace your family tree and everybody knows everyone.
In NYC (or other large cities such as Chicago) they had/have to navigate through a much more crowded underworld and constantly changing politics and demographics.
The ethnic and cultural canvas of places like Youngstown and Upstate NY, eastern PA, etc... haven’t changed that much in the last 50 years.
Ironically, what brought down many of these smaller families was their involvement in larger, nation-wide rackets with bigger coastal families (Unions, Vegas,...). If they’d have kept it low key and local, chances were they’d still be around today.
All this plus the fact that the bosses run these families as their own private clubs: very little room was given to other up-and-coming guys so you had no new blood coming up. Small families were run like close-knit kingdoms while larger ones were run like proper governments.
I’ve never been to western Pa or some of the other places you’re referring to but you couldn’t be more wrong when it comes to northeast pa. 50 years ago it was one of the wealthiest areas on the east coast with incredible economic growth and was 80-90% white. When my father was in high school there was 5 blacks in his graduating class in 1980. Shit, even when I graduated in 1999 there was only 10-12. Subsidized housing in that area was practically non-existent until probably 75-77.
Fast forward to now and my 12 year old is 1 of 2 white kids in her class of 15 or so. My 14yr sticks out like a sore thumb in her team picture for basketball because it’s her and 1 biracial girl. Wilkes barre, Scranton, Pittston, Hazleton and many other towns all the way through upstate New York to damn near Canada are like this now. The Poconos was one of the premier vacation places for wealthy New Yorkers and others to visit from 1950 thru 1980 or so. From the 80s until a few years ago when Denaples got Mt Airy(Bufalino made that happen from his grave, trust me) it was a slum filled with minorities from NYC, NJ and Philly using it as a crash pad to sell drugs all over NEPA. There was almost no violent crime in NEPA from 50-70, now the murder rate rivals all the big cities.
As far as cultural, ethnic and economic change over the last 50 years goes NEPA couldn’t have changed more. That area is the complete opposite of what it was 50 years ago and it isn’t getting any better.
