The Wire and reality?

It can be quite terrifying

as real as it gets

love that show btw

I like in the midwest and there are definetly places like that in St. Louis and Chicago. Even in my city, if you go out late on a summer night in the wrong neighborhood, you can get hit up by 10 crack dealers within 2 blocks. Every stop sign.

Never watched the show, but I don't believe it happens like that. I live in a pretty fucked up neighborhood. But sellers aren't on the street - They're in their apartments, and junkies come in, so there's no line or whatsoever.

But most "sellers" hardly ever get caught. They're hired by the dealers, and they work from their apartments. It's true that neighbors get suspicious, but they don't like to talk. They all mind their own business when it comes to criminal activities.

At least that's the system in my city.

Nah, its rubbish.

My dealer calls me, and asks what I want. Then he brings it over in person... Dont even need to leave my penthouse...

Yes, it's real.

I lived in Baltimore City. I lived in the nice yuppie area, but as an REO agent, I had to go in and take back the foreclosures in both the good and bad neighborhoods.

There were many times I had to call for a police assist. They were always cool about it. I could tell just how bad the neighborhood was by whether their guns were drawn or not when sweeping.

The dealers have quite an elaborate system of spotters and hand signals.

They also use teens to ride around on illegal dirt bikes to spot the narcs. They use kids because they're less likely to go to jail.

Half the cops are crooked anyway.

The show is actually based on a book by David Simon (the Wire creator) called The Corner. It was also an HBO miniseries. When Simon was a reporter for the Baltimore Sun he spent a year observing one corner in a ghetto in Baltimore and wrote about it. So based on what he saw there it is pretty realistic. I'm sure there are some thing done for the sake of a show and dramatic effect, but overall it is right on point according to Simon.

Back in my druggie days I copped dope in Baltimore off Penn ave. & laurens St, edmondson ave. etc etc...the shows portrayal is pretty damn realistic.

I've done several pretty extensive road trips throughout the US, and I can verify that Baltimore is about as bad as it gets. It looks like an oldschool Harlem. The hotels will draw a small rectangle box around the financial district (about 2 blocks) and say "don't go outside of this area".

Chicago has really bad areas as well. Driving around at night I saw like 15 boarded up houses in a row, then one with people living in it, 7 more boarded up, and it continues. The one with people living in it? 25 black guys on plastic chairs in their front yard drinking, staring down every car that goes by.

A gas station we stopped at had 2" bullet proof glass and a metal slide-try to pass things through. There was a newspaper pressed against the glass, and the pretty much the entire front page was pictures of black guys wanted for murders. One of the guys it said killed his own mom.

Another time in San Antonio I was with a friend who lived there, and we went to his mom's house. Looked like a nice enough area, fully detached houses and whatnot.. Except that most of them had gang signs painted across them, and were also full of bullet holes from drive by shootings. Not even a main street, this would be like on a Crescent or Court in Toronto, just regular suburb streets. Then every once in a while there would be a crackhouse with no windows left, fully graffiti'd up, shit everywhere.. I went inside one, it was worse on the inside than the outside.. Garbage everywhere, more graffiti inside than out if that was even possible, broken glass, and a bunch of baby stuff - strollers, kids toys, bottles.. Nice scene.

And still, Baltimore stands out for me as being the bottom of the bottom.

Whats the name of the show? " the wire" its not a reality...

Never watched the show but a good read on the subject of ghetto life is the book "Gang Leader For A Day" by Sudhir Venkatesh.