Multimunicipal planning allows neighboring municipalities to develop a shared vision and to coordinate on various planning issues, including growth management, infrastructure provisions, preservation of natural and historic resources, and economic development. It can also help municipalities receive funding from state agencies, address issues that cross municipal boundaries, provide for every type of land use within a multimunicipal jurisdiction, save money or provide additional services, and reinforce the importance of local planning. Some benefits of multimunicipal planning include:

• A consistent and comprehensive strategy for economic development among cooperating local governments, rather than competition for tax revenues. Because local governments may designate growth areas, they can identify areas where commercial or industrial development should be encouraged and provide public investment in these areas to attract developers. This can also strengthen existing communities by focusing development within existing Centers, and by concentrating commercial and high-density residential growth in these areas.
• Farmland and natural resource preservation. Often, natural features, such as watersheds, are more appropriate areas for environmental planning activities than political boundaries. Also, by allowing transfer of development rights across municipal boundaries, more farmland and other natural resources can be preserved.
• Money savings, as the costs of activities, like developing a comprehensive plan, can be shared by several municipalities. This can also provide the basis for other service-sharing relationships. State agencies often give priority in grant programs and funding decisions to multimunicipal planning areas and often give greater weight to multimunicipal plans than to individual local plans.
• Additional defense against curative amendments. Municipalities are required to provide land for every type of use. Local governments that adopt multimunicipal planning still must provide land for every use, but not individually. For example, if several municipalities participate in a multimunicipal plan and one already has adequate high-density housing, the participating communities may collectively satisfy their high-density housing requirements.

A joint zoning ordinance may be prepared after adopting a multimunicipal comprehensive plan and would become the primary implementation tool. However, each municipality may still enact their own zoning ordinance. Although municipal cooperation can be taken to greater lengths, as with the merger of Princeton Borough and Princeton Township in 2013, most cooperative partnerships happen on a much smaller scale.