Social Sciences

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Louise Nelson Dyble Assistant Professor of History Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, 2004 Department of Social Sciences Office Location: Office Phone: 906.487.2189 FAX: 906.487.2468 Email: ldyble@mtu.edu

Louise Nelson Dyble specializes in urban history, with a focus on twentieth century politics and policy, infrastructure and the built environment, and metropolitan government and governance. Dyble earned a PhD in history at the University of California, Berkeley, and she won the 2004 award for best dissertation in Urban History. She taught and conducted research as a postdoctoral fellow at UC Berkeley in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, and at the California Institute of Technology. She spent two years working on contemporary issues at the Keston Institute for Public Finance and Infrastructure Policy at the University of Southern California.

Dyble's ongoing research includes a book project on road and highway financing in the United States with a focus on turnpikes and toll roads tentatively titled Paying for Pavement. She also has a collaborative project underway on food and agriculture in California titled Indulgency or Innovation? The Quest for a Just Food System. Dyble joined the faculty of Michigan Tech in 2009, and is contributing to its programs in Industrial Archeology and Environmental Policy. She is actively involved with the Urban History Association, the Society for City and Regional Planning History, and the Public Works Historical Association.

Selected Publications

Paying the Toll: Local Power, Regional Politics, and the Golden Gate Bridge. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009. Abel Wolman Award for best new book in the field of public works history, 2010.

“The Continuing Saga of Zoning in America.” Journal of Planning History, May 2010.

“Reconstructing Transportation: Linking Tolls and Transit for Place-Based Mobility,” Technology & Culture 50 (July 2009).

“The Defeat of the Golden Gate Authority: the Beginning of the End of Regional Planning in the San Francisco Bay Area.” Journal of Urban History 34 (Jan. 2008).

“Revolt Against Sprawl: Transportation and the Origins of the Marin County Growth Control Regime.” Journal of Urban History 34 (Nov. 2007). Michael C. Robinson Award for best essay or article in public works history.