Show Me a Hero is a 2015 American miniseries based on the 1999 nonfiction book of the same name by former New York Times writer Lisa Belkin about Yonkers mayor (1987–89) Nick Wasicsko.

[1][2] Like the book, the miniseries details a white middle-class neighborhood's resistance to a federally mandated scattered-site public housing development in Yonkers, New York, and how the tension of the situation affected the city as a whole.

[9][10][11] By 1988, the city had already spent $11 million in legal fees fighting against the order, including a failed effort to appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States.

[2][12] Mayor Nick Wasicsko ran on the platform opposing the judge's order, but before taking office, in the face of the issue being supported by a federal appeals court, became an advocate for desegregation in Yonkers.

Newman's theories emphasized the value of small groups of townhouses with yards, rather than multi-story apartment blocks, to provide a sense of ownership for the low-income residents, while being immersed in the activities and culture of middle-class neighborhoods.

[34] In 2001, Simon sent Zorzi, who at that time was assistant city editor at The Baltimore Sun, a copy of the book, which he was taking to HBO as a potential project.

[39] Simon refers to Yonkers as one of the first locations of the birth and growth of scattered site housing and the integration of architect and city planner Oscar Newman's work on defensible space theory and his 1972 work "Creating Defensible Space,"[40] and that this story went on to impact methods of public housing programs on a national scale.

[39] Director Paul Haggis states that when he heard about Simon's project, he told his agents to agree his participation, even without him reading the script.

[2] The Schlobohm Houses were one of the examples of a 1980 federal case[44] – initially started in 1979 by the Carter Justice Department – then brought as a friend of the court case by a local NAACP chapter[45] who sued the city of Yonkers with claims of segregation by the city, where the poorest residents were forced into living in the western part of town.

[53] The scenes in the housing projects incorporate period hip hop and rap by acts like Digable Planets and Public Enemy.

[25] Creator Simon said the appeal of the story was a focus on the disintegration of American politics and its corrosive dysfunctional nature in urban cities.

[2][56] Simon wrote that the series "...addresses class and racial segregation in our society, is more about our calcified political processes than directly relevant to the core grievances underlying current events.

"[57] Simon said that the show depicts a city that is paralyzed by both fear (of integration) and money (valuations of real estate properties).

[50] He saw the story as allegorical of current America with refusal to share and the collapse of civilized behavior (with rage and fury quickly fracturing a city) due to the hyper-segregation of the poor in large WWII era high rise housing projects — ironically not the proposed scattered-site town houses that were actually being mandated.

[59] The idea is not part of a larger whole, a bigger picture, with each of his shows taking up real estate within that vision; it is both disparate and less organized than a global overview.

The website's consensus reads, "Show Me a Hero is an impressively crafted period drama whose timely themes prove as absorbing as its engaging, compassionately drawn characters.

Alan Sepinwall from HitFix cited his performance as being especially strong, describing him as compulsively watchable even during long scenes with a lot of dialogue, while Daniel Fienberg of The Fien Print said Isaac is the key to the story and is compelling, inhabiting his character fully.

David Wiegand wrote for the San Francisco Chronicle, "Keener makes Dorman the touchstone of the story, as she constructs an ordinary woman whose values and beliefs are largely unexamined and derive from a lack of exposure to alternative ways of thinking.

[77] Jacqueline Cutler of the New York Daily News cited the portrayals of the four women who are the focal points of the story, noting the strength of LaTanya Richardson Jackson's performance.

[78] Matt Zoller Seitz from Vulture opined that the supporting characters are the heart of the story and establish the resonance that careful viewers of Simon's show will find rewarding.