"Even in their "heyday", New England was considered a 2nd tier Mafia Family behind the 5 in NY, Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia and Kansas City. However, you can't discount the fact that Ray Sr. had a seat on the commission as he was well liked by the NY bosses. New England, specifically Boston, is unique in the sense that the city was a haven for Irish immigrants and Irish gangs/crews always carried a lot of weight in Boston, probably more so than any other city with a traditional LCN family. "

What other cities had strong lcn competition/allies from other ethnic groups (pre-1990 or so)?
Here's what I can think of:

New York City - Irish, jews, smaller groups (Russians, Albanians, etc)

Boston - irish

Chicago - Irish

Cleveland - irish, jews

Detroit - jews

St. Louis - irish, 'syrians'

I assume there were irish and jewish gangs in Philadelphia, but were they as strong as New York? How about Kansas City?

Also, are black gangs really considered as possible rivals for LCN? I know that they have been all over the US in varying levels of size and complexity and they have had contact with LCN (especially with respect to policy and drugs), but I've always thought of black OC as being something largely "self-contained" within the black community. Same for old time Chinese OC (gambling dens, etc.)