When the Mobile City Council votes today on whether to take the next step toward a possibly historic annexation, longtime residents might remember the city’s last major annexations in 2007 and 2008. Those happened for similar reasons: largely for increasing the city’s revenues.

While Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson argues that the 2007 annexation was critical to the city’s ongoing financial stability, this time, the approach is markedly different.

The past annexations focused more on economic corridors and less on growing the city’s population. This time, Stimpson and his administration have focused on hitting a population number above 200,000, which they say would make the city eligible for larger grants on the state and federal level. Doing so would catapult Mobile from the fourth-largest city in Alabama to the second largest, behind only Huntsville.

As the city gears up for the Mobile City Council’s vote on annexation, here’s a look back at the annexation in 2007 and 2008.