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Carl Smith

Senior Staff Writer

Carl Smith is a senior staff writer for Governing and covers a broad range of issues affecting states and localities. For the past 30 years, Carl has written about education and the environment for peer-reviewed papers, magazines and online publications, with a special focus on conservation and sustainability. He has guest-edited special issues of the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health focused on the Precautionary Principle and the human rights dimensions of environmental degradation. Carl attended the University of Texas and the University of Georgia. He can be reached at carl.smith@governing.com or on Twitter at @governingwriter.

What can Phoenix, the hottest large city in the country, teach local governments about managing extreme heat?
Before Jane Gilbert took on the job for Miami-Dade County, no city in the world had a chief heat officer. What can others learn from the work she’s doing?
A new edition of a book by a former government official argues that human-centered steps taken before technology implementation are the key to success.
A year ago, six jurisdictions were selected as the first participants in an incubator project designed to help them harness the economic power of publicly owned land and buildings. Atlanta is ready to use what it learned.
In The Three Ages of Water, Peter Gleick traces the history of a resource humans can’t do without. While there’s enough water to go around, he says, state and local leaders from both sides of the aisle need to act now on what we know.
Americans turned to parks for physical and mental relief during the pandemic. New research by the Trust for Public Land explores connections between urban parks and health.
Nationally, nearly 900 unique titles had been targeted for bans during the first half of the 2022-2023 school year. Most bans target stories by and about people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals, but some include books on history and art.
Despite steady gains, the LGBTQ+ community is severely underrepresented in elected office.
Researchers from Columbia University visited five states to see how they were using money from the American Rescue Plan to build their public health workforces. They found that politics might matter even more than dollars.
A few states have proposed or passed laws defining "male" and "female," and more such legislation may be coming. Critics say the definitions amount to erasure of those who choose gender identities different than the one they were given at birth.