Urban Gardening, Sustainable Development and Inhabitant Perceptions: A New Framework for Analysis

Our study aimed to understand and explain citizens perspectives on urban gardening and sustainable development. We studied three second-tier cities in Poland and conducted 1,086 surveys with citizens. The inhabitants’ perspectives on urban gardening and the social, economic, and environmental dimensions of sustainable development were assessed using importance–performance analysis. Inferential statistics were used to explore the association between perception scores and gardening types. We found that citizens perceive the environmental aspects of urban gardening to be more important than the social and economic aspects from an overall sustainable development perspective with highest Fuzzy Evaluation Score (FES) 3.64. Higher sustainable development perception scores were observed among citizens who participated in multiple types of urban gardening. The study’s findings highlight the development potential of the indicators of social connections, smart technology adaptation, and reductions in city operating costs. The results of gardening type on perception may be key to future decision-making.