Mike Tedesco

City Boy: Urban Planning, Municipal Politics, and Guerrilla Warfare Mike Tedesco

In the world of municipal politics, truth is stranger than fiction and there is no truth stranger than La Blanca Gente, Colorado. In this striking first book, the author weaves between the anecdotal and the academic to sew a grand comic farce as he unveils the curtain over the tactics employed by government employees to achieve their own ends. Tragic? Absurd? Harrowing? Indeed, and City Boy serves as a lesson on what not to do when confronted by those who are just dumb enough to take you down. Throw your Urban Planning and Public Administration text books out the window because in the world of municipal politics you better be ready for a street fight.

''This is a story that too many practicing planners will recognize, and many who seek to become planners should come to understand before entering the profession.'' --Kirk McClure, Professor Graduate Program in Urban Planning, University of Kansas

''Mike Tedesco might well be the ghost of gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson returned to tell us what the life of a planner is really like, painting pictures embedded in a real-world reality that is too often ignored, or sanitized in academic planning textbooks. This book should be required reading in all planning schools. Don't wait for the movie. Read it now!'' --Gundars Rudzitis, Professor of Geography, Environmental Science, and American Studies; Adjunct Professor of Philosophy, Department of Geography, University of Idaho