Last week, the de Blasio administration announced some major changes in the city’s sustainability programs: The Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability  and the Office of Environmental Coordination will merge into a single Office of Sustainability, to be led by Nilda Mesa, formerly of Columbia University. Ms. Mesa has led the Office of Environmental Coordination since September.

Here’s a great interview with her from the City Atlas while she was still working at Columbia, but here’s a quote about NYC’s livability:

What makes New York City liv­able for you?

I’ve been liv­ing in the city since about 1998. So, after liv­ing in a cou­ple dif­fer­ent neigh­bor­hoods here, I moved to Harlem about ten years ago. And I love liv­ing in Harlem because it is a very human scale there. It’s very neigh­bor­hoody and I can walk to work. So now I don’t need a car, and after liv­ing in LA, that’s a big thing for me. I love being able to stop and notice Morn­ing­side Park. So that’s the kind of thing that really, that really makes it for me – being able to walk into River­side Park and look at the Hud­son – just the ease of access and the availabil­ity to the rich resources – cul­tural and archi­tec­tural and every­thing else in the city, I think is great.

Ms. Mesa’s office will be working closely with Daniel Zarrilli’s Office of Recovery and Resiliency to cut building emissions over the next 10 years; they will also be responsible for updating the city’s sustainability plan, PlaNYC.