the one thing that has allowed the LCN to continue on has been their ability to adapt to changes in society. will it last forever ? probably not. it will continue to go on in its well entrenched NE stronholds, and chicago.
Exactly. It will be status quo for another couple of generations, and that's when attrition will start to thin the ranks. But for the time being, they're not going anywhere.
I imagine there will be a big shift after the guys born before 1950 or so start dying off. If you look at the Genovese chart, a huge chunk of the membership is 60-80. That cohort is going to be hard to replace when they all croak en masse starting 10 years or so from now. I think there will be substantial downsizing then. And think of all the accumulated knowledge, leadership skills, and "old school" ways (irreplaceable things from a totally different era) that will be dying with them.
In New York, the main effect of the prosecutorial onslaught seems to have been diminishing the families' control of the legitimate world, not killing off the families themselves. Generational attrition will be what does that eventually.
