Rachel Maddow talks infrastructure! Because efficiency. Because livability. Because creativity. Oh, and beer too.

“In a lot of far-flung corners of the country right now, you can see America’s new economic optimism in small-scale local ambition,” writes MSNBC talk-show host Rachel Maddow in her latest Washington Post column.

The western New England resident uses that mostly rural region to make her point, mentioning successful craft breweries like the Alchemist (of Heady Topper fame) and Lawson’s Finest Liquids in Vermont, and the expanding Wormtown Brewery of Worcester. She also mentions the soon-to-be revamped Lake House in Ashfield, Massachusetts, the entrepreneurial Click Workspace in Northampton, Massachusetts, and, oh yeah – the launch of a magazine focused on New England’s new culture!

Maddow ties all this startup activity together with – what else? – infrastructure! Roads and bridges. High-speed Internet. Amtrak. Biking- and walking-friendly towns. Because efficiency. Because livability. Because creativity. Because flow of goods and capital.

What does a magazine care about infrastructure? Are you kidding? We’re spread out over New England, so we need high-speed Internet for virtual staff meetings, not to mention Take‘s web version. We need good roads when we start distributing magazines all over the place. We want creative people to put down roots in New England so we can talk about them and they can talk about Take. A robust arts and culture scene needs infrastructure. And what fun would infrastructure be if it didn’t deliver arts and culture?

We’ll drink a pint to that.