A message from ... Toronto
Utrecht is more like a village text Jurgen Sijbrandij
‘I
never expected I’d end up in Canada. After finishing my Master’s research in Malaysia, I decided to travel through Australia. I was planning to go back to the Netherlands
afterwards. It all turned out differently: I met my Canadian girlfriend there, and live in Toronto these days.
‘The COVID-19 pandemic is having an impact on my work’
When I got my work permit, I took a job at Environics Analytics. We use our demographic, financial and socioeconomic
Jesse Terhorst (BSc in Human Geography and Planning, 2015; Economic Geography, 2016) is a data analyst at Environics Analytics, a Canadian survey and market research company.
databases and a national segmentation
We’ve also noticed that people from poorer
system to help companies and government
neighbourhoods go out more often than
agencies in Canada and the United States
those in wealthier areas because they tend
understand the characteristics, motiva-
to work in retail, for example, and can’t
tions and values of their customers, target
work from home.
demographics or residents. The outcomes of those analyses are used to develop
I apply the knowledge I learned at Utrecht
marketing strategies, campaigns and
University in my work. For example, I use
policies. I‘m working out of my little flat
some geographical information systems
in downtown Toronto at the moment
that I learned about when I was doing my
because of the COVID-19 measures.
Bachelor’s degree. Still, you mainly learn things in practice, on the job, especially
The pandemic is also affecting my work
in terms of quantitative data analysis.
in other ways. We use anonymised mobile
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Illuster — March 2021
phone data to map the movements of
I was born and raised in Utrecht. I have
groups of people in busy locations, such
to say it’s a bit like a village in comparison
as parks and shopping malls. For example,
with Toronto. Toronto is bigger, and more
we learned that many residents started
car-oriented. People are used to long
using shopping malls just outside the city
commutes, and a three-hour drive for
during the city of Toronto’s regional lock-
a short visit isn’t unusual here. That
down. As a result, the number of COVID-19
wouldn’t really happen in the Netherlands.
infections went up despite the measures.
It’s just on a different scale.’
