"The Mafia remains potent in the New York City area, where officials say the mob is hard to uproot because it has five separate and large crime families, and in the suburbs of Chicago. But in most other areas, where prosecutors have to contend with only a single family, the legendary mob that once controlled entire labor unions, city governments, and criminal enterprises has clearly lost its grip." (1990)
http://www.the-laborers.org/lexisnexis/articles/mob_in_decline.htm"Only New York and Chicago have substantial Mafia organizations." (1997)
http://www.slate.com/id/1054/"The estimated made membership of the LCN is 1100 nationwide, with roughly 80% of the members operating in the New York metropolitan area. There are five crime families that make up the LCN in New York City: the Bonanno, the Colombo, the Genovese, the Gambino, and the Lucchese families. There is also LCN operational activity in Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, and the Miami\South Florida area, but much less so than in New York. In other previous strongholds such as Cleveland, Detroit, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New Orleans, and Pittsburgh, the LCN is now weak or non-existent." (1999)
http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/218555.pdf"The LCN is most active in the New York metropolitan area, parts of New Jersey, Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago, and New England. It has members in other major cities and is involved in international crimes." (2000)
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/organizedcrime/italian_mafia/?searchterm=lacosanostra"Once boasting 26 families nationwide, the mob is down to 11, half of those confined to the New York area. Moreover, the Mafia's influence still extends far beyond New York. There remain active families in Chicago, Detroit, New England, New Jersey, Philadelphia, and Miami." (2000)
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/badguys/060912/the_mafia_a_21stcentury_cosa_n.htm"Only families in New York and Chicago, the largest traditional bases, retained a semblance of organizational frameworks. Elsewhere in the nation, the twenty-odd borgatas were in disarray or practically defunct, except in areas where the New York and Chicago families had branches, especially in Florida. The remaining strength of the Mob was largely concentrated in New York and the Northeast Corridor." (2005)
Five Families - Selwyn Raab
"Cosa Nostra, once a nationwide organization of Italian-American mobsters, is down to one outfit in Chicago and New York City's five organized families - the Bonannos, Colombos, Gambinos, Genovese, and Luccheses. They are about 'all that's left,' Mob historian Selwyn Raab says." (2005)
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-03-09-mafia-cover_x.htm "They're beleaguered, battered, and bruised but they are far from wiped out. They have been hurt by nearly three decades of prosecutions, mostly by federal authorities. But the five families in New York and those in other metropolitan areas, notably Chicago and its suburbs, remain viable criminal networks." (2006)
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/05/weekinreview/05capeci.html"Today, families in former strongholds like Cleveland, Tampa, and Los Angeles are gone. Our thing - as initiates called the mob - is in serious decline everywhere but New York City." (2007)
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-10-25-2782988181_x.htmIn the video from 2009 below, at about the 3:30 mark, Franzese refers to there still be 9 La Cosa Nostra families left.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4itjtW-3sbw
