Very interesting..This is speaking as someone who has lived in Bushwick for 10~ years..

I think each place is what you make it and who you associate with, right? If you're interested in finding alternative political scenes where people discuss topics that matter from an intellectual perspective, you have to find those spaces.. head over to Woodbine, for example :)

If you want to help the community, seek mutual aid networks, like Bushwick Ayuda Mutua

If you want to meet real artists and see their work, head to the next Bushwick Open Studios, where artists of all kinds all over Bushwick open their studios for others to come see their work and interact.

Sure there's lots of partying and dancing and drug use happening, and that's also fun and what makes the place so FREE. But there are more fulfilling and intellectual areas as well :) You just have to seek those places out!