AFTER decades of decline and neglect and the exodus of more than half of its population, Detroit now owns a cityscape that is often described as post-apocalyptic. Abandoned prewar skyscrapers, immense dilapidated factories, downtown streets devoid of people, entire neighborhoods nearly vacant and returning to brush: all provide epic vistas of blight, warning about the fickle nature of capitalism.

Detroit’s dilapidation has been the subject of increasing fascination over the last few years, ranging from several books of photography to a number of nonfiction films. The documentation of this decay, however, can be as problematic as it is spectacular, veering into empty cliché and, to some, voyeurism and exploitation. Documentaries like the British “Detroit, Ruin of a City” and “Requiem for Detroit?” and the French “Detroit Ville Sauvage” (“Detroit Wild City”) emphasize lurid end-times imagery and wallow in the symbolism of the factories that helped win World War II and build the middle class being swallowed whole by nature.

But now native filmmakers from the Detroit region are offering their own take on the city’s plight, hoping to provide a more nuanced and insightful examination than what outsiders have contributed. Several recent films, with sharply different approaches, unflinchingly tackle Detroit’s problems without indulging in what has come to be called “ruin porn” or ignoring the residents’ tenacity and resilience.

“There are of course a lot of urban areas in the world and North America that are undergoing similar kinds of problems,” said Elliot Wilhelm, the curator of film and video at the Detroit Institute of Art. “But Detroit has for some time now been used as a poster child for what can go wrong, and at the same time, it’s rapidly becoming a poster child for what kind of creative solutions can be found.”