3 weeks at the Windsor Star have past. I really like the place. Both the paper and the City.

The staff is very welcoming. They really make me feel at home and do everything they can to help me. They are so nice. The city is also great. I live in Old Walkerville, which look like le Quartier Montcalm, in Quebec City.

Windsor have a nice downtown area. The only problem is the lack of day to day store such as groceries or Video club. North of Tecumseh road, their is nothing. Actually, Tecumseh road is the boarder between the city and the Suburb. North of it, everything look great to me. South of it, well... It's a suburb like the one you have near you.

And of course, there is Detroit, one of the strangest city of the universe. First, you have to know that Windsor and Detroit are like Hull and Ottawa. The small city (Windsor and Hull) are just a bridge away of the big City (Ottawa and Detoit). We went there 2 times yet, and it's... unique.

The downtown is fabulous, especially when seen from Windsor. The area is kind of safe and there is a lots of beautiful building to look at.

However, most of the neighborhoods are places you don't go alone at night. Or even during the day. Moreover when you have $15000 of photo gears with you.

Quickly said, "Detroit has endured a painful decline since the 1950s, and is often held up as a symbol of Rust Belt urban blight. The 12th Street Riot in 1967 and court-ordered busing accelerated "white flight" from the city. Large numbers of buildings and homes were abandoned, with many remaining for years in a state of decay" (Wikipedia)

The result? As of 2001, the city was 81.55% Black or African American. The National Institute for Literacy declared in 1998 that 47% of Detroiters were "functionally illiterate." Some 72% of all Detroit children are born to single mothers. (Wikipedia)

Many times, Cindy and I asked ourself: Are we still in North America, or we just landed in Haiti? Detroit now have about 1 millions citizen, half of what it used to be in 50 years ago. About half the houses and stores are burned and still there. It is shocking to see a 3 years old kid playing in front of his home surrounded by two burned out houses. (see photo on Wikipedia)

Abandoned and burned out shells of buildings are a frequent sight, with some 16,037 empty houses recorded in 1999. The city lacks funding to demolish the properties and the homes are often used for the production, sale, and use of illicit drugs.

The city has faced hundreds of arsons, often in the city's many abandoned homes, each year on Devil's Night, the evening before Halloween. The Angel's Night campaign, launched in the late 1990s, draws many volunteers to patrol the streets during Halloween week. The effort has reduced arson: while there were 810 fires set in 1984, this was reduced to 142 in 1996 (Wikipedia)

When the Windsor Star have to sent a photographer to Detroit, they say that they send two of them. One to drive, the other one to watch. The first time we went, Cindy was holding my camera, in case I wanted to shoot something. I never felt comfortable enough to do so. The second time, we put the camera in the trunk, in case we would be stopped at gunpoint.

Despite improvement in recent years, Detroit's crime figures are often among the highest in the U.S. The city is currently listed as the most dangerous city with more than 500,000 by the Morgan Quitno's statistics, but comes after Camden, New Jersey. Detroit is consistently in the top five for homicide rates. Murders peaked at 714 in 1974, though the highest murder rate was recorded in 1991, when there were 615 homicides and the city's population was just over a million. In 2003, there were 361 homicides, the lowest count in recent years. (Wikipedia)

Last month, Windsor suffered the first murder of a police officer on duty in her 120 years history. In Detroit, there was 19 of them killed on duty just last year.

I would like to document Detroit as a personal project. But after all the above facts... How?