Street-smartness or Wisdom - which one of these attributes would you like to have?

Anacreon is right. There is no difference. I think the term is used as a defense by the ignorant or the stupid to defend their lack of formal education and to ridicule those who they perceive as being better educated and/or having more wealth. Some of your answerers are mistaking knowledge with wisdom. They aren't the same. A person may have knowledge of a wide range of subjects but be foolish at the same time. Some people are like encyclopedias: they acquire a great many facts but they can't apply them to daily living or to new situations. Wisdom is acquired through experience and memory. Naturally we need the intellect to recognize the similarity of circumstances that demand similar thought or action, but we also need the ability to apply what we know or have learned through experience to new situations and problems. A person who isn't "street smart" may simply be ignorant of the environment or the societal mores and dangers inherent in a particular culture, but if he is wise he will be able to apply what he already knows or has experienced to survive or cope with new situations. A knowledge of human nature, of the motivations that initiate the actions of the dispossessed or the poor; the drug culture, the cupidity and avarice that affects the behavior of all people are things that the wise acquire and apply to all interpersonal relationships. "Street smart" is just one facet of that wisdom, and a small one at that.

As to your second question, since there is no difference and since street smart is just one aspect of wisdom, the answer is wisdom. Wisdom always serves for the common good because the wise don't act without forethought. One last thing I'd like to clarify: simply because a person hasn't a formal education doesn't make them stupid. I have known many people who have a Ph.D, in life and as a consequence were very street smart, which is to say they were very wise. Once again let me reiterate: don't mistake education or knowledge for wisdom.

Street-smartness=wisdom.

Which would I rather have, Street smarts. You can go to school to get the wisdom but street smarts can't be taught in school you gotta get em yourself.

Which one serves a common good of society probably wisdom

street smart. I have a good friend in college and we are both chemistry majors. While she is more smart than I am (wisdom) and can ace any class/ test, she has never worked a day in her life and is very unfriendly to people. When she got her first job, she did not know how to complete simple tasks like file or call patients. Obviously she knew how to pick up a phone, but she just wasnt sure the etiquette for being in that situation and how to deal with people. Therefore Id rather have street smarts because you can go anywhere in life.

Survival in the streets is a jungle instinct. . . knowing a trachea-otomist. . .from a common cutthroat.

Sounds like wisdom from someone who was smart enough to survive the streets to me.

Why do you perceive the two may be mutually exclusive? They can't be mutually inclusive?

As to either or both and good for the society? Such a determination can only be made by the possessor of one or both "instruments". Is he/she using it as a weapon or a tourniquet?

I'd like to think I have both,but if I had neither I'd say it depends where I live.Street smarts don't matter in the country.If I lived in the city,I'd want street smarts.If in a rural area,wisdom.

Wisdom is better.It's a sad reflection of society that we even need to learn street smarts.

Wisdom.

When you are street smartness, you won't know how

to survive in the wilderness.