The mills no longer turn. Schools struggling, ghettos of unemployed youth divided by colour, language and money. A fleeing middle-class in a town desperately trying to find its place in time, again. A history that predates the nation it belongs to. A champion oval-shaped ball chasing team giving the citizens some much needed pride. Drugs. Crime. Destroyed unions and a local newspaper reducing its pages by the day. This isn’t Baltimore, this is Leicester.

Leicester and Baltimore, not often in the same sentence.

David Simon’s epic “The Wire” can’t be mentioned without an obligatory accompanying superlative: “The Greatest TV Show Ever Created“; “Barack Obama’s favourite show“; “A modern day Greek Tragedy“. The Guardian has a dedicated online section devoted to exploring every facet of the drama, which deconstructs the murky and confusing inner-workings of Baltimore city from the ground up – the drugs trade on the streets, the declining union on the docks, the statistics chasing inner-city school system, the morally-deprived police service and even the local newspaper’s struggle for relevance. Countless blogs and articles have been written reconstructing every scene and story. Various universities including Harvard have courses dedicated to dismantling and dissecting every nuanced social commentary lurking in Omar Little’s famous diatribes. In short, The Wire is not just another TV cop drama.

The Wire never gained mass appeal like The Sopranos did but instead quietly developed a fervent zealous following dividing the world into those that knew, and those who had yet to be educated. What makes The Wire such compelling viewing isn’t the astute observations of Lestor Freamon or the moral uprightness of Cedric Daniels‘ lower back, but the infinite cyclical nature of Baltimore, its institutions and by extension, urban America itself.

So here’s an idea – take any densely populated city and then “apply” The Wire to it like a recipe in an illustrated cookery book. It doesn’t take long to identify characters, institutions, industries, locations and stories that mimic its TV counterpart. The Wire is the dramatic mirror which reflects back the ugly truth about de-industrialisation and the urban decay that can follow. I’m from Leicester. I applied The Wire to it, and this is what happened:

Senator Clay Davis

Politics is just another Game played with the briefcase instead of a shotgun according to Omar. Clay Davis is the grandmaster – positioning mayors, commissioners, gangsters and lawyers on his chess board to ensure he always wins whichever colour makes its move.

His silver tongued smooth delivery, opportune media appearances, championing of minority causes and cemented support amongst the black-minority ethnic (BME) population makes him a formidable character in the courtroom. Being a former lawyer helps Keith Vaz, of course.

The controversial and polarising Leicester East MP enjoys fanatical support in the city’s mostly Indian Belgrave and Rushy Mead areas polling over 50% of the vote at the 2010 general election. The Vaz dynasty has established itself as a powerful ruling family – mother Merlyn was the city’s first Asian female councillor and sister Valerie is also an MP for nearby Walsall South. Keith Vaz could eventually become a Lord ensuring his name forever lives on in Leicester infamy.

Vaz’s Wikipedia page describing his “Political Life” reads like a list of “How not to be a public leader”, including illustrious highlights such as:

Of course, there’s only one real question worth asking about Keith Vaz – what would an informal drink at the Strangers Bar between Keith and Clay sound like? Possibly something like this:

Keith Vaz: Hey, Senator, the Daily Mail is running that story about helping my friend again.

Clay Davis: Shieeeeeet Keith, you know them stupid muthafuckas at the met police ain’t gonna touch yo shit with one of your 10 foot barge pole muthafucka got enough dirt on that muthafucking Dizaei to have his ass put away for straight 10 years muthafucka. I know what they bury in those Hillsborough files. Shieet.

Keith Vaz: But Senator, what about the properties and the money Even Hinduja’s backed away.

Clay Davis: Keith, lemme tell ya. This fella, think his name was Bell or some shit like that. Brutha, I tell ya, we bled that muthafucka! So don’t worry bout them downtown niggas, once you get pass the lawyers, they all game!

Keith Vaz: Shieeeeeeeeet.

Mayor Carcetti vs Nerese Campbell

In 2011 55% of the Leicester electorate agreed to have an elected city Mayor superseding the powers given to the former council cabinet. By 2012 a fascinating and destructive power struggle broke out between new mayor (and former MP) Sir Peter Soulsby and former leader of the council Ross Wilmott.

Wilmott lost letting Soulsby race forward implementing his vision for the future of Leicester, starting with a new public “Jubilee Square” to complement the city’s heritage. But old problems can’t be repaired with a new sketchy-pencil picture. The city’s decades long problem with failing schools has been grasped by incumbent Tory leader Michael Gove as a stick to beat the state-school system.

As with the fictional Carcetti, Soulsby came to office with noble aims. His well advertised 100-day action plan was generally well received and promised a new brighter future. But just like the fictional Carcetti, Soulsby too finds himself embroiled in internal manoeuvring preventing him from committing fully to the city that needs him so badly.

The Greeks

Season 2 introduced David Simon’s face of unfettered capitalism – Spiros “Vondas” Vondopoulos and his geriatric but ruthless money obsessed boss, The Greek. Lurking peripherally around Baltimore’s street gangs, these guys played an entirely different but crucial Game to the one reluctantly enjoyed by Avon Barksdale, Marlo Stansfield and friends – supplying drugs and women to Baltimore.

Step forward Albanian Hysni Sokolaj, almost Greek by virtue of geography. He briefly made the Metropolitan Police’s “most wanted” foreign nationals list in early February 2013. Sokolaj and his organisation are still being hunted by the Met for crimes including murder, robbery, drug trafficking and most likely human trafficking too.

No information has been released about whether or not Sokolaj’s victims keep their faces and hands.

See also:

The Baltimore Sun and Gus Haynes versus James Whiting

The Leicester Mercury is the city’s last remaining local newspaper. Cuts from the owning group in recent years has seen the outlet reduce staff and even stop printing its own daily. In 2011 respected editor Keith Perch unexpectedly resigned from his position. News on the grapevine suggested a poisonous friction existed between Perch and “The Publisher” – reminiscent of the increasingly destructive duels between Gus Haynes and James Whiting at The Baltimore Sun.

Bubbles

If Baltimore had a face, it would look like Reginald “Bubbles” Cousins – a stoic character whose struggles mirror those of the city he sleeps rough in. The Wire tackles homelessness thoroughly in Season 5 as part of an absurd story-line that revolves around a depraved serial killer. Leicester hasn’t suffered a serial killer who leaves motifs, but it does have a growing homelessness problem exacerbated by the city’s rising population, high property prices and the lack of jobs – by 2011 at least 50 people were sleeping rough and 200 families living in hostels. Continuing austerity and housing benefit caps will most likely have made this figure even worse.

Lestor Freamon

He has Leicester in his name.

So what?

Applying The Wire as a template for modern urban societies is an interesting exercise for identifying recurring patterns in the structure of our cities. Decline is never terminal but cyclical. Understanding this cycle can give mayors and decision-makers a chance of breaking it – perhaps explaining why the new mayor of Reykjavik has made it obligatory viewing for his coalition partners.

The Wire characters such as Omar Little and Jimmy McNulty are fictional exaggerations to tell the story of an old American city. They are hard if not impossible to find real-life counterparts for – however, the fabric into which these stories are woven into can be readily found in most urban settings allowing localised imitations to be weaved into our own surroundings. Find enough similarities and for a brief moment, we too can become just another character playing The Game.