In addition, Summit is home to many people who could be described as "urban sophisticates", which are people who are not only wealthy and employed in professional occupations, but highly educated to boot. Urban sophisticates have urbane tastes - whether they reside in a big or small city, a suburb, or a little town. Urban sophisticates support bookstores, quality clothing stores, enjoy luxury travel, and in big cities, they are truly the patrons of the arts, attending and supporting institutions such as opera, symphony, ballet, and theatre.
Because of many things, Summit is a very good place for families to consider. With an enviable combination of good schools, low crime, college-educated neighbors who tend to support education because of their own experiences, and a high rate of home ownership in predominantly single-family properties, Summit really has some of the features that families look for when choosing a good community to raise children. Is Summit perfect? Of course not, and if you like frenetic nightlife, it will be far from your cup of tea. But overall this is a solid community, with many things to recommend it as a family-friendly place to live.
In Summit, however, the average commute to work is quite long. On average, people spend 30.90 minutes each day getting to work, which is significantly higher than the national average. One bright side is that local public transit is widely used, so it may be an option to avoid the headache of driving in the heavy traffic by leaving the car at home and taking transit.
Although the majority of commuting trips in the city are by private automobile, Summit is somewhat unusual for a city of its size for having a substantial number of people who use public transportation. For a lot of people, the train helps to get to and from their jobs every morning, which benefits everyone in the Summit area by reducing both traffic and air pollution.
If knowledge is power, Summit is a pretty powerful place. 71.81% of the adults in Summit have earned a 4-year college degree, masters degree, MD, law degree, or even PhD. Compare that to the national average of 21.84% for all cities and towns.
The per capita income in Summit in 2022 was $104,469, which is wealthy relative to New Jersey and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $417,876 for a family of four.
Summit is an extremely ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Summit home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Summit residents report their race to be White, followed by Asian. Summit also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 11.89% of the city’s residents. Important ancestries of people in Summit include Irish, Italian, German, English, and Polish.
In addition, Summit has a lot of people living here who were born outside of the US (21.09%).
The most common language spoken in Summit is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Chinese.
