Sustainability Plan – in my oppinion, sustainability can be “implemented” on specific plans (educational, transport, health, building, economic etc..) but it can´t be a general name, unless we´re considering a plan that will cover all aspects of urban planning and everyday life (what does holistic really covers??). I´m afraid we may get lost trying to cover such huge topic.

Implementation – I see implementation as a materialistic action, as the execution phase, not as a new plan (even if it is a specific plan, a plan is a plan, implementation can´t be another plan…I know you love plans, but I´m a lawyer hehehe). I would call these specific plans that derive from the master plan (sustainability plan) the “transportation projetc” or “energy projetc”. That is how we try to do in Brazil, when we say “municipal development plan”, we have a federal law that defined what it has to cover and deal with, at least the minimum coverage.

Gareth – I live in Brazil, and we have similar struggles. These kind of plans really sound like “good advice” considering our everyday problems and most urgent needs. But they are “long term plans”, objectives to reach through small steps , our goal is to press our politicians to aim these small steps towards these long term goals. That is everybody´s job, including the planners.

And there goes my oppinion
Abraços

Quite frankly, if there is no “buy-in” at the political level, then the likelihood of concrete action is small. Ignore the bureaucrats, if they’re half decent, they’ll follow the politician’s direction(s) once developed.

How has this worked in our community? (Not that we’re sustainable – but we’re moving in the right direction!) We developed a grass-roots driven community vision that laid out some sustainability principles, goals and direction. You can view the “Mining the Future” vision on our web site (www.canmore.ca). With grass-roots support and direction, it’s far easier for politicians to make the “right” decisions. Your community just needs to tell them (through the vision document) the directions to take. We’ve found our vision document to be very powerful as a “public voice” around which Council can rally and align its decisions. It’s not the answer, but we’ve found it’s a great place to start. Sure, we’re a small town (15,000), but Durban can do this too, starting with small steps and leading to the bigger ones.

This brings me to my question: What hope is there of any of these admirable plans being implemented if there is no buy in from the politicians and bureaucrats running the city? Is there really any buy in in Durban.

I’m sure Durban is a very different place from Calgary!

I’d agree with Gary that the comprehensive and integrated planning and implementation are key elements here. I’d even build it into the terms themselves:

Instead of talking about moving from “sustainability planning to implementation” maybe we should be talking about “integrated implementation.” That would put the need for a holistic approach up front and center where it needs to be.