'Bedlam City' is an excellent example of a corrupt city- something along the lines of Nightwing's 'Bludhaven', it'd recommend it for ideas of how crime and criminals can have the upperhand in a city.
It is quite street-level and gritty, but also hints that there might be magical, corperate and secret government types who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo- it's actually quite realistic as to why 1) most people on the national stage ignore it. (think Detroit) and 2) That it would be really hard to fix, even for superhero types.