The suburban counties are what you would call “donor communities” because they will always be a net source of revenue but never receive back anything of value.
They did the same thing here in Central Indiana to finance Lucas Oil Stadium, some people are promoting the same thing to finance regional mass transit.
Ironically, it was Indianapolis mayor Dick Lugar who instituted something like this in the late 1960’s with “Unigov,” which merged most of suburban Marion County with the City of Indianapolis under a city-county form of government. The suburbs hated it, but it went through anyway. The benefit was the Republican suburbs got to vote for mayor, and since 1970 Indianapolis is one of few larger cities that has had a Republican mayor, and has historically been fiscally sound.
What I suspect in most regional taxing schemes now is that the taxation will not go with the commensurate representation, and the democrat power structures of the big cities will never allow the doughnut communities to vote on their jobs. But they do want their money.
And even though the Cubs still suck, I do like listening to Pat Hughes and Keith Moreland on WGN while I do yard work. I will probably take my son to a game next month because seats will be available, and Wrigley Field is always Wrigley Field.