LOL, drug dealers still stand on corners. 😎
PS, I loved this show.
I've only ever seen a few episodes, so my experience with the show is limited, but I have lived in Baltimore all my life and, like most crime-cop shows, part of the intensity of the show depends on your belief that you might get murdered at any moment. Cops are there to prevent that or catch the bad guys if they don't.
Having lived here all my life and not been murdered yet, I'll throw in some reality comments about not just The Wire, but also Homicide, Life on the Streets. For whatever it's worth most of us who live here don't get murdered. In fact, most of the population here live normal lives in nice places. I, for one, don't go to those relatively small areas like on the shows because of both danger and the fact that I just don't want to be in those places and the fact that they are just not appealing at all. I also don't buy illegal drugs and don't do much murderin' myself and don't belong to a gang.
If fact, where I live is not just beautiful, but affluent, civilized and well policed. I'm not rich, but I live well and am low on anybody's crime list.
It's worth noting that TV shows, especially cop shows, don't do well without some suspense, threat level and fictional stereotypes. You have to know who the bad guy is in the first minute of the show so they can finish up the plot line.
Us locals have a mixed view of those shows, but they serve a purpose, like keeping outsiders at a distance so they don't run up the rents when people find out how well you can live here.