R. T. Rybak says he tried to write Pothole Confidential: My Life as Mayor of Minneapolisas a “journalist embedded at city hall.” That’s something he could legitimately pull off, since his first job was as the entire staff of a suburban Minneapolis newspaper, followed by stints as a crime reporter at the Star Tribune and publisher of an alternative weekly. The result is an intimate and, from my own perspective as a former mayor, highly authentic view from inside the maelstrom of urban governance.

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