What does Boston sound like when you stop to listen?

Today, realtalk@Boston invites you to do just that—with the launch of a new public-facing portal where you can listen to hundreds of Bostonians, in their own voices, share stories about their neighborhoods, hopes, frustrations, and dreams for the future of their city.

This portal, designed and developed by the MIT Center for Constructive Communication (CCC), is a living record of over 250 recorded conversations across 11 Boston communities. Each conversation feels like sitting in a living room or community center, listening as neighbors open up about what life in Boston is really like. From stories of displacement and the longing for belonging, to questions of safety and care, to who gets to thrive here, these dialogues reveal a city both proud and restless—rich in culture, yet still struggling to make space for everyone.

“We worked hand-in-hand with trusted community leaders who know their communities best,” says Marina Rakhilin, program lead at CCC. “It was great to be able to translate some knowledge about group facilitation and listening tools to these incredible organizers, who were already building spaces where their community members felt safe to speak from the heart.” Together, these locally grounded conversations form a collective portrait of Boston, heard through the voices of those who live its complexity every day.

Through this effort, CCC is working closely with its closely affiliated non-profit Cortico, to give any member of the public—along with Boston decision makers—a firsthand opportunity to listen directly to the voices of more than 250 Bostonians, many from some of the city’s most underheard communities.  

“When we talk about meaningful communication, we mean listening—truly listening—to the experiences and perspectives that too often go unheard,” says Dimitra Dimitrakopoulou, principal investigator and CCC’s head of translational research & practice. “Our hope is that realtalk@Boston becomes a model for authentic civic engagement, showing how conversation can rebuild trust and connection, not just here in Boston, but everywhere.”

Funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, realtalk@Boston blends deep human storytelling with innovative technology. CCC’s human-AI sensemaking tools—including FoRAGe, a custom-built AI-assisted theme explorer—help reveal connections and contrasts across hundreds of hours of dialogue. The result: an interactive experience where you can explore themes, discover surprising alignments, and hear how different neighborhoods talk about shared challenges. Visitors to the portal are able to hear, react to, and share these highlights through interactive features while also learning more about the organizations, facilitators, and methods behind these conversations.

“Technology doesn’t replace listening. It helps scale it,” says Maya Detwiller, prototype manager at CCC. “We used AI to surface patterns across hundreds of stories, but it’s the human interpretation, the nuance, the empathy that brings those patterns to life.”

“We designed the portal to make the richness and complexity of multiple perspectives come alive,” says Casandra Lee, research designer at CCC who led the platform’s design. “Each ‘explore page’ weaves together a set of highlights—sometimes aligned, sometimes in tension—into a central narrative. The result is an experience that invites you to listen across communities and experience a range of contrasting narratives across the city.”

Visitors to the site can “roll the dice” to discover new conversation clusters, each weaving together a mix of perspectives and story highlights. Click into a theme, and you’ll find five short audio excerpts from different communities: contrasting, overlapping, sometimes conflicting, but always deeply human. You can also download the same conversation guide used by community facilitators and host your own realtalk session, continuing the experiment in citizen-led public discourse.

This portal is the result of a truly collaborative effort led by CCC’s translational research team. “Building this portal was an act of listening, design, and care,” says Dimitrakopoulou. “We thought deeply about how people would not just navigate, but feel their way through these stories.” 

Join the Conversation

Visit realtalk.boston to explore the voices shaping Boston’s future. Listen to what your neighbors are saying. Reflect. Share. And maybe, start your own conversation in your own community.

Credits:

Designed and brought to life by the translational research team at the MIT Center for Constructive Communication.

Principal Investigator: Dimitra Dimitrakopoulou

Design & Branding: Cassie Lee

Sensemaking & Content: Marina Rakhilin and Maya Detwiller

Thematic Analysis: Elissa Carrillo and Ellie Montemayor 

Software Development: Lucas Drummond

Photography: Artemisia Luk

With gratitude to the Boston community leaders and conversation participants who made realtalk@Boston possible: Jasmine Bell, Richard Claytor, Ava Dudani, Chris Faraone, Sulagna (Dia) Ghosh, George (Chip) Greenidge, Rev. Chris Hope, Rashaun Martin, Marlon Orozco, Maridena Rojas, Jill Stevens, Jaylene Tiscareno, Lorrin Van Evra, Caitlin Walsh, and Abbi Wilson.