Sharing Economy and Sustainable Development Goals: Multi-Dimensional and Cross-Dimensional Alignment at the City Level—A Qualitative Meta-Synthesis Based Systematic Review

The sharing economy has emerged as a transformative urban phenomenon shaping sustainable development pathways, governance practices, and spatial organization in cities. Despite its growing prominence, fragmented conceptual approaches and inconsistent indicator frameworks hinder systematic assessments of urban sustainability at the city scale. This study develops an integrated analytical perspective through a qualitative meta-synthesis of the sharing economy and the sharing city literature. Following the PRISMA protocol, a systematic review of the Web of Science and Scopus databases identified 73 peer-reviewed articles (2015–2024), analyzed across four dimensions: spatial, operational, governance, and environmental. The findings reveal increasing multi-dimensional approaches yet limited structural integration. The meta-synthesis shows that 68% of studies focus on only two dimensions, few address three, and none integrate all four. Research predominantly focuses on spatial–governance relations, while environmental performance and operational equity indicators remain underexplored. Studies are concentrated in European and North American metropolitan contexts, highlighting gaps in developing countries and medium-sized cities. The study introduces a Hybrid Dimension concept capturing inter-dimensional interactions and proposes an indicator-based framework for assessing sharing-oriented urban sustainability. The framework contributes to the literature by enabling a measurable multidimensional assessment aligned with SDG 11 and supporting integrated urban sustainability governance.