Summit is a city in Union County, New Jersey, United States, and an affluent bedroom community of New York City. At the United States 2000 Census, the city population was 21,131. Summit has the 16th-highest per capita income in the state. What is now the city of Summit was created as Summit Township by an Act of the New Jersey Legislature on March 23, 1869, from portions of New Providence Township and Springfield Township. Summit was reincorporated as a city on March 8, 1899. Beyond the obvious derivation from its position atop the Second Watchung Mountain, other theories have been offered to account for the city's name. The house in which Jurist James Kent lived starting in 1837 called Summit Lodge (today standing at 50 Kent Place Boulevard), and a local sawmill owner who granted passage to the Morris and Essex Railroad for a route required to climb to "the summit of the Short Hills" have both been offered as the source of the city's name.