How is street smart better than book smart?

Answer 1

If you are book smart and educated you can get a job to keep you off the streets. If you are street smart you can keep yourself safe while living on the streets because you neglected your education.

Answer 2

"Street smarts" are better for "psychology" than book smarts. A person who is street smart will be able to avoid or minimize potentially dangerous situations. A street smart person is skilled at quickly reading people's intentions and moral character. In a nutshell: street smart people are very skilled at utilizing critical thinking, they tend to be skeptical of others, and are not deceived easily. While many street people are not necessarily street smart, those who are truly "street smart" are essentially experts of functional "street psychology."