Meet their friends. Possibly be able to go home for lunch. The benefits are civic interaction, social cohesion, pedestrian comfort and safety, higher property values, pride of ownership, independence for seniors and for kids, and housing affordability. For developers the benefits include market appeal, differentiation, higher prices and rentals, lower infrastructure costs, residual value of retained assets. But we can't accomplish this with the existing zonings - we have to change the rules.
Intelligence can reside in a place.
An example was seen in Chattanooga where they transformed an old shopping centre into a community place. They started by filling in the parking places. It was a citizen-driven planning process. Community fundamentals include municipal services, civic institutions, economic development, education, health care, arts and culture, environment, communications, transportation and physical design. Cities can be green and wonderful.