Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(orig. US) able to survive in the inner city or the ghetto streets, despite a lack of material, bourgeois advantages.

1960		Wash. Post 11 Dec. C3: Bonomi is relentlessly methodical in building his case with his investigative training: jealously careful about legal aspects to close all loopholes, but most of all he is what the fight mob calls ‘street smart.’.
1972		N.Y. Times 4 June BR17: Emmett Grogan is a freckle-faced Irish-American from Brooklyn. He learned to play Ringolevio in his childhood for money and glory—until one game left one player dead and two critically injured—and from it learned to be ‘street smart.’.
1991		M.B. ‘Chopper’ Read Chopper From The Inside ix: [Intro] Read is a ‘character’: street smart, witty and good company.
1999		N. Cohn Yes We have No 223: There was this tough, streetsmart shell, and this whole other self inside.
2002		J. Ellroy ‘The D.A.’ in Destination: Morgue! (2004) 151: He was book-schooled and street-smart.
2008		R. Price Lush Life 70: ‘That’s very clever of you’ [...] ‘As in street-smart’ .
2020		D. Whish-Wilson Shore Leave 78: They were all street-smart – he and Marion had given them that at least.
2024		C. Stella Joey Piss Pot 228: Doris Montalvo may have been street smart, but Rapino never would’ve let her get the jump on him.