Philadelphia was so much safer with the Mafia. Neighborhoods were safe. Businesses payed a ‘protection’ tax, but they didn’t have mobs of hood rats stealing them blind. Illegal drugs were verboten. The only real violence was between rival mob families.
The mafia seems to be the big city equivalent of the KKK. While the KKK did bad things, they didn’t put up with this type of behavior, either.
Please don’t romance the mafia. If you were a small business, refusal to pay for “protection” didn’t receive a “No problem” response.
The Mafia had it’s problems but could keep things safer. When Vinny came by to collect the 50 cents for the numbers racket you could at tell him some weird guy was starting to hang around the kids play ground and a couple of tough guys would check things out.
Not in the hoods, especially when it came to dealing Heroin...."They're animals anyway, so let them lose their souls."
Nicky Scarfo was a murder machine, there’s NOTHING redeemable about the “mob” in ANY city.