Geographical confinement.

It's very easy to believe that the family had 3 wars when you consider that almost all of them were based in a few Bklyn neighborhoods. That might be beneficial if you're a crip, but not a mobster.

The Lucchese's, who have maintained roughly the same membership level as the Colombo's, were widely distributed and had several Bklyn crews, a Harlem crew, Bronx, Downtown (Prince St.), and Jersey. It's a wide distribution. In fact, I believe one of the things that saved the Jersey crew from Casso is the fact that they were all the way in Jersey, not Dyker Heights.