You might want to compare houses and their values of the two cities. Grand Forks house seem to be more over priced. Just saying.
My wife's aunt built a new house in Fargo a few years ago for about 90,000 and that same house would probably cost a lot more in Grand Forks, ND.
Maybe we are comparing apples to oranges or apples to apples. The fact remains that the Alerus center is a drain on the city no matter how you slice it.
I think the main point is the city is playing loose with our money and Whistler has done a pretty good job breaking down the issues over on Say anything blog.