What side are you on?

All this week I've been bombarded with the question of, "Who are you for, Spartans or Wolverines?" as the big game approaches. One thing is painfully clear, and that is the dedication (borderline fanaticism) in which these fans support their teams.

It got me to thinking: What other fanatical splits do we as a society endure? Well there was Marvel Comics Civil War story line, there's the North and the South, there's even Democrat and Republican. Probably the most poignant for this region is city and suburb.

This is a rivalry that I don't quite understand. The majority of sububan citizens are either former city dwellers or the descendants of former city dwellers. Yet there is this passionate distaste between the two groups.

In trying to make sense of this dynamic, I discovered a few things.

1) There are quite a few Detroiters who feel like the used and jilted lover. There are quite a few city employees who earn their living in the city, but refuse to live there.

2) There are quite a few suburbanites who are just plain sick and tired. Sick of city government corruption and enbarassment. Tire of high taxes and poor services. Sick and tire of high crime (or the perception there of) and high insurance rates.

3) They are both right.

Under Dave Bing's admisitration, the city is facing massive and quite possibly permanent layoffs to right size a work force that is the same as it was when the city had more than a million residents. Suburban government leaders still publicly denounce and redicule the city, its residents and their leaders. The citizens of Detroit continue to see the suburbs and their citizens as the evil denizens from the ether.

For as long as I can remember I've always heard that how goes Detroit, so goes the region. The reverse is also true. Why is that some believe that one area has to fail in order for the other to succeed?

This devisive and ignorant mentality of separate but not equal is ludicrous in this day and age. I guess the question is, what side are you on? And the bigger question, when are we going to pull our collection heads out of our collective asses and start building a better Detroit and surrounding region?