During its run, I absolutely loved the HBO series The Wire. It was a fascinating show that provided deep insight into the institutional corrosion that felled post-industrial cities like Baltimore. Each season featured institutions – the sad ubiquity of the illegal drug trade; Baltimore’s port system, and the union desperately trying to remain relevant; government bureaucracy and corruption; troubled public school systems; and the declining influence and resources of the newspaper print industry – trying to make the city better, or simply make a way to survive.
Baltimore is not a city I include in my focus group of Rust Belt cities, but it’s undeniably Rust Belt in its experience. And The Wire spoke to what happens in cities where the foundational economy disappears and nothing enters to replace it, far better than any show I’ve seen.
A lot of people who care about cities saw the series full of metaphors, an opportunity to dig deep into the problems of the inner city without getting too close to them. It was an intellectual journey, or worse yet, lurid entertainment. The Wire’s viewers generally weren’t exposed to the issues of the show’s characters, unless they lived in similar conditions in a similar city. Viewers could watch drug deals and drug hits from the security of their living room, or ponder the moral complexities of political corruption without paying a direct cost. For many, watching The Wire was like watching a trainwreck slowly unfold from a safe distance, or riding a wild rollercoaster ride with the certainty that they would never be thrown out.
Many television shows aim to reach the kind of blunt authenticity displayed in the The Wire, but never reach it. Much of The Wire’s authenticity is attributed to David Simon and Ed Burns. Simon was the creator, executive producer, head writer and showrunner of The Wire, with Burns being Simon’s his long-time collaborator in writing and production. Burns, a Vietnam War vet, got a first-hand look at Baltimore’s streets as a detective in the Baltimore Police Department. Upon retirement he later taught 7th and 8th grade students in the Baltimore City Public Schools. Simon gained this authenticity from his years working the city desk for the Baltimore Sun.
Rust Belt Reporter, the wonderful memoir by former Detroit Free Press journalist John Gallagher, reminds us that we need more writers who can accurately depict this aspect of the American urban experience.
As the book’s title suggests, Gallagher’s journalism career is almost entirely centered on Rust Belt cities. He starts as a young reporter with the City News Bureau in Chicago in the 1970’s, before moving on to newspaper gigs in Rochester, NY, and later in nearby Syracuse. However, the bulk of Gallagher’s career was spent in Detroit, where he worked for the Detroit Free Press for 32 years before retiring in 2019. This was the job that gave him as he said “the catbird seat over America’s greatest urban story – the rise, fall, and rise again of a great American city,” and led to most poignant and meaningful writing of his career.
It’s odd how much of Gallagher’s career touches on themes brought to the screen in The Wire. He’d covered drug-related murders; he’d written on United Auto Workers and Teamsters union negotiations with Detroit’s Big Three automakers, and even on his own union experience as part of a devastating newspaper strike; he’d published investigative stories exploring local government corruption. If anyone were to write the Motor City version of The Wire, Gallagher would have the cred to do it.
Read the rest of this piece at The Corner Side Yard.
Pete Saunders is a writer and researcher whose work focuses on urbanism and public policy. Pete has been the editor/publisher of the Corner Side Yard, an urbanist blog, since 2012. Pete is also an urban affairs contributor to Forbes Magazine's online platform. Pete's writings have been published widely in traditional and internet media outlets, including the feature article in the December 2018 issue of Planning Magazine. Pete has more than twenty years' experience in planning, economic development, and community development, with stops in the public, private and non-profit sectors. He lives in Chicago.
Photo: courtesy Pete Saunders.
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