Mayor-elect Emanuel’s real counterpart in county government is dealing with an estimated budget shortfall of $487 million. In her transition report last December, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle floated some ideas on how to close that budget shortfall. One of those involves making nearby towns responsible for unincorporated land. This would relieve Cook County of some financial burden. But what would annexation involve and how would it affect its residents?

Rebecca Hendrick is an associate professor of political science at University of Illinois at Chicago. She has a book coming out this fall about the financial situation facing municipalities and she joined Eight Forty-Eight by phone.