Scott Hutcheson

What's Your Sign?

What's your sign? No, not your astrological sign, the sign, rather, that greets you as you enter your community. Mine says, "Welcome to the Friendly City." Others I've seen celebrated some favorite son or daughter - "Childhood Home of..." Still others note a famed successful season of a sports team, "State Champs 1976."

These signs often signal what residents are proud of. My career has taken me to a great many communities, and many times I've asked groups of locals what makes the place they call home unique? What separates their community from most others? What gives people a reason to come there to live or do business? What keeps people there instead of moving away?

About 80 percent of the time I've received remarkably similar answers, something along the lines of, "It's a great place to raise a family." Even when I inquire about a community's greatest economic development "asset" that's often the answer I get. Mayors and regular folks alike seem convinced that businesses should be lining up to invest in their communities and that people would be hard pressed to find a better place to put down roots. When that's not the case, they are certain it's because they must be their region's "best-kept secret."

There's a bit of a problem when so many communities point to their quality of life as what makes them unique and special. If everyplace is unique and special, then no place is unique and special.

Don't get me wrong; there is much good in having a self-confident community. It leads to all sorts of social benefits. There is also, however, great value in communities understanding their truly unique assets because every community is in competition with many others. Every time businesses take a look at them for its next expansion. When residents consider job offers that would take them away. When soon-to-graduate college students decide whether to move back home or seek their fortunes elsewhere.

When I work with a community, identifying these unique assets is one of our first orders of business. We often start with brainpower, the distinctive skills, abilities and know-how resident in the community. Next we dig to understand the pipeline of new ideas and innovations that brainpower produces - things that are made there and types of new enterprises that get launched. We also consider place-based assets like natural resources and amenities. Last, I ask them to recount the stories that set them apart, the culture, the heritage, even the legends and myths.

Every community - even the smallest ones - has unique assets in all four of these areas: brainpower, innovation and entrepreneurship, quality connected places and stories. Identifying these assets, however, is just the first step. The next one is leveraging and combining them in ways they've never been linked before.

One community did this after recognizing its significant historical asset in the large number of European immigrants who had settled there more than a century earlier. There was architecture, food and culture still resident from that era. Community leaders leveraged that feature by becoming a travel destination, resulting in a new unique brainpower asset: hospitality and tourism. Later, the community capitalized on this new expertise again when recognizing it had an unusual number of illuminated ball fields and set out to become a regional hub for baseball and softball tournaments. This local economy continues to hum along quite nicely.

Communities - large metros, small towns and suburban neighborhoods - need to be in a near constant state of reinvention in order to survive. It sounds awful to say it, but at a minimum, they need to replace the dying with the living just to maintain the status quo. Some, of course, want to grow at a steady rate. The best strategies for survival or growth are built on a community's existing unique assets, the building blocks for what's next.

If you need some help thinking through your community's unique assets and how they could be leveraged, take a look at the work of the Asset-Based Community Development Institute at Northwestern University.

So the next time you drive into town and see that sign that welcomes you back home, be thankful that it likely is indeed a good place to raise a family or a friendly city. But many will never get the chance to learn this, as you have, unless you also know your community's unique assets and spread the word.

Now Playing at Your Local Farmers' Market

In 1953 George Marshall directed superstars Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh in Hollywood’s telling of the Harry Houdini story. I wasn’t around in 1953 but in the 1970s, when I was growing up, it was my favorite movie after having caught it on the late, late show some Friday or Saturday night. I had a handful of other favorite classic movies befitting of a boy enamored with magic, monsters, and adventure. Each week I read through the TV listing hoping one of them would be playing.

Before the days of Netflix, DVRs, Blockbuster, or even VHS recorders this was the way it was when it came to television. You had to catch things when they were on. If you missed a TV show episode you had to hope it would be on summer reruns and when it came to favorite movies, you either went through the TV guide like I did or you caught it by chance when scanning the channels.

As much as I love Netflix and my collection of DVDs, which includes a copy of Houdini, I miss the simple thrill that would come when, usually once a year, a favorite was on. Back in the day, that excitement over something that could come and go quickly was also present on our family’s dinner table. Strawberry shortcake, watermelon, and sweet corn, were like my Houdini movie.  Catch them now or it will be a long wait before you see them again.

To a previous generation the modern-day supermarket would be no less a marvel than the DVR. Those of us, however, who have tasted both grocery store sweet corn in November and Indiana sweet corn straight from the farmer’s field, know there’s no comparison. The real thing, you just have to wait for. A visit to the farmer’s market brings back that sense of anticipation, seeing week to week what’s there, finding both long-time favorites and newly-discovering new ones as well.

Here is a recipe that takes advantage of some of the early offerings you will find at your local farmer’s market. For roast chicken with vegetables you don’t have to wait for the traditional veggies and herbs that come later in the season you can use what’s ready now. Radishes, for instance are wonderful when roasted. They get sweeter as the sugar’s concentrate. The same goes for the green onions. Garnish this dish with fresh chives instead of heartier rosemary or thyme gives it a bright, summertime finish. If you are lucky, you may be able to also pick up the chicken at your market.

With our own farmer’s markets in full swing, I’m hoping you are a regular like me. If not, visit once and you might become one. One word of warning: once you experience local in-season versions of what you find in the produce section year round, you’ll be left wanting for about 50 weeks a year, but when that favorite comes around again, the long wait will be worth it.

 Roast Chicken with Farmers’ Market Vegetables

• 4 chicken quarters (all white, all dark, or mixed)
• Kosher salt
• Freshly cracked black pepper
• 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 pound small potatoes, washed
• 2 bunches radishes, washed cut in half
• 1 bunch green onions, washed and trimmed
• 1 bunch baby carrots, washed and greens removed
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh chives
• 1 lemon, halved

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees. Rinse the chicken and pat dry with paper towels. Season with salt and pepper, then place skin-side up on a rimmed baking sheet lined with parchment. Drizzle with oil and roast 15 minutes.

As chicken is roasting cut the potatoes and radishes in half and cut the scallions into thirds. Toss the potatoes, radishes, carrots and the remaining olive oil in a bowl and season with salt and pepper. Toss to coat.

Remove the chicken from the oven and reduce oven temperature to 375. Add the vegetables to the baking sheet, positioning them around the chicken pie. Continue to roast until the vegetables are tender and the chicken is golden and cooked through, registering 165 on a probe thermometer for white meat or 175 for dark. This will likely take about 30 more minutes. Move chicken and vegetables to a platter, squeeze the lemon over the chicken and vegetables top with the chives and serve. Serves about four adults.

Adapted from a a column originally published in B Magazine, June 2014