Somerville, MA is a satellite city of Boston. Historically it was a kind of working class inner-ring suburb that also hosted some messy industrial stuff that was too undesirable to happen in Boston proper (slaughterhouses and rendering plants, for example), but in recent years it's been filling up with artists and hipsters and becoming rather gentrified -- similar to what's been happening in Brooklyn, NY. The last time I was in Somerville was about 15 years ago so I can only imagine. It's actually kind of amazing that it would be considered a desirable place to visit, because it's never been that before...
-Philip Marshall