Somerville has won the All-America City 2009 Award.

The All-America City Award is given by the National Civic League annually to ten cities in the United States.

The award is the oldest community recognition program in the nation and recognizes communities whose citizens work together to identify and tackle community-wide challenges and achieve uncommon results (wikipedia).

In its award-winning presentation to the judges at the All-America City 2009 Awards in Tampa, FL, the City highlighted the Green Line Extension to represent the way that government, business, and the community work together to make Somerville a great place to live. The Green Line Extension is just one example of the many ways that Somerville tackles community-wide challenges and achieves uncommon results.

The City's nationally acclaimed Shape Up Somerville (SUS) program is another:

In a community where 44 percent of children are overweight or at risk of being overweight, the average youngster here gained roughly 15 percent less weight than the typical peer in the control group ("Fit City," by Irene Sege, Boston Globe, December 2, 2008).

The story of Somerville's off-leash recreational areas is another of the many examples of how we work together to come up with creative solutions to difficult issues. In five years, Somerville went from being a city in which people with pets were banned from all parks to a city with two off-leash recreational areas, two additional off-leash areas in planning and numerous parks across the City that people may enjoy with leashed pets. And all this is just a small part of a larger story about how Somerville, the most densely-populated city in New England, is creating more open space.

These are the success stories of a city where government, business and community recognize our common interests and work together to accomplish our shared goals.