“Way Down in the Hole”: Systemic Urban Inequality and The Wire

Abstract

The Wire is set in a modern American city shaped by economic restructuring and fundamental demographic change that led to widespread job loss and the depopulation of inner-city neighborhoods.1 While the series can be viewed as an account of the systemic failure of political, economic, and social institutions in Baltimore in particular, the fundamental principles depicted in The Wire certainly parallel changing conditions in other cities, especially older industrial cities in the Northeast and Midwest. Indeed, it is for this reason that The Wire captures the attention of social scientists concerned with a comprehensive understanding of urban inequality, poverty, and race in American cities. In providing a sophisticated depiction of systemic urban inequality, The Wire investigates how key aspects of inequality are interrelated. It offers an in-depth examination of the decline of urban labor markets, crime and incarceration, the failure of the education system in low-income communities, and the inability of political institutions to serve the interests of the urban poor. A central theme of The Wire and a fundamental principle of scholarship on urban inequality is that political, social, and economic factors reinforce each other to produce profound disadvantage for the urban poor. By highlighting these connections, The Wire sheds light on the per-