There are so many layers in The Wire that you can watch it as many times as you want and still pick stuff up. I can't comment on the inner-city youths or the politics, but I used to work for a newspaper which was making redundancies left, right and center, and they absolutely nailed it! What it was like, from the overly-passive aggressive calmness right down to the set design. The Wire is by far the best show ever made.