The rebirth of Motor City: Detroit's amazing transformation captured on camera after it loses ONE MILLION residents in 60 years

When it comes to embattled cities, Detroit has suffered more than most - with a dramatically declining population, crumbling industries and homes and buildings abandoned.
The Michigan city has lost 60 per cent of its population since the 1950s - around one million residents - when the city was America's fourth largest and the thriving hub of car industry and Motown music.
The striking images which document the changes in Detroit were taken by photographer Camilo José Vergara over a period of 25 years.

 

Dancing in the streets: East Palmer Street towards Chene Street in Detroit on a 95-degree day in 1995

 

Green shoots: East Palmer Street, Detroit in an image taken earlier this year

Although there are decrepit buildings and vast swathes of wasteland, the pictures also capture how the people of Detroit have rejuvenated their city amid decline.
Once busy streets have been turned over to farmland and bustling shopfronts lie empty but brightened up with graffiti.

 

 

It is in the marrying of the urban and the rural that Detroit has seen most prolific development. With areas of land available for just a couple of hundred dollars, farming companies run by young entrepreneurs have set up sustainable businesses boasting homegrown produce.

 

Urban to rural: Great stretches of Detroit which has been left empty is now being used as city farms

 

Squalor: Thousands of homes are due to be knocked down in Detroit as around a third of the city now lies empty

Chilean-born Vergara focuses his work on inner city America. His subjects have includedNewark, Camden, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Detroit, Chicago, Gary, Milwaukee, Oakland, and Los Angeles. He currently lives in New York City. 
The exhibition, entitled Detroit Is No Dry Bones, runs until February 18 at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. 
It runs alongside another project, Detroit Disassembled, by Andrew Moore at the same gallery.

 

Motor City: Willie's Garage with its colorful frontage, pictured by Vergara in 1991

 

Gone tomorrow: The former site of Willie's Garage now lies empty

 

On track: Michigan Central Station in Detroit which was once the fourth largest city in the U.S.

 

Ground to a halt: The train station lies desolate, one of many once majestic buildings to go to ruin in Detroit

 

Wise words: Graffiti sprayed on a wall in Detroit this year where citizens have worked to reclaim a city in decline

 

 

 

Cashing in: The Highland Park State Bank in 1993 (left) and in 2009 (right)

Desolate: A former factory lies in ruins in Detroit where almost a third of the landscape has turned to wasteland

 

Abandoned project: A laboratory goes to waste but has survived remarkably intact with test tubes and glass jars

 

 

Long forgotten: A once thriving business is left to rot in the Michigan city

 

Boarded up: A series of store fronts sit quiet in the city which has seen the population decimated in the past half century

 

Eerie: The abandoned back lot of a factory in Detroit which was once the heart of the American automobile industry

Disconnected: A conference room lies empty at an office building in Detroit, Michigan