  Citation: Sturiale, L.; Scuderi, A.; Timpanaro, G. A Multicriteria Decision-Making Approach of “Tree” Meaning in the New Urban Context. Sustainability 2022, 14, 2902. https:// doi.org/10.3390/su14052902 Academic Editors: Marta Bottero, Chiara D’Alpaos and Francesca Abastante Received: 29 December 2021 Accepted: 23 February 2022 Published: 2 March 2022 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). sustainability Article A Multicriteria Decision-Making Approach of “Tree” Meaning in the New Urban Context Luisa Sturiale 1, * , Alessandro Scuderi 2 and Giuseppe Timpanaro 2 1 Department of Civil Engineering and Architecture, University of Catania, 95127 Catania, Italy 2 Department of Agriculture, Food and Environment, University of Catania, 95127 Catania, Italy; alessandro.scuderi@unict.it (A.S.); giuseppe.timpanaro@unict.it (G.T.) * Correspondence: luisa.sturiale@unict.it Abstract: Future cities will need to plan and design urban green spaces and woodlands to meet diverse interests and needs, provide ecosystem services required by an evolving urban society and improve continuity between urban and rural spaces. This future planning approach calls for more sustainable patterns of urban growth, where forests and green spaces can help create more sustainable, resilient and inclusive cities, and address the challenges of a growing urban population. Green areas are of strategic significance because in addition to absorbing harmful pollutants, improving temperatures, and mitigating the impacts of climate change, they have a positive effect on people’s health and well-being and help to create inclusive societies. The values considered are manifold and a multi-criteria assessment, including an evaluation of citizens’ perceived needs, allowing policy- makers to steer choices towards green-oriented urban planning tools, where green spaces and urban forests enable them to meet the challenges of future cities. The research presented here is part of this line of study in order to propose a tool to support stakeholders’ decisions on urban green planning. The objectives of the study are to find out about the perception of urban green spaces and examine what kind of relationship should be established between the local authority and the population with regard to information and participation in the planning of green areas. The results highlight that citizens recognise the importance of ecosystem services and perceive green areas as strategic elements of urban quality of life, in agreement with some previous studies conducted in Italy and other countries. Keywords: eco-system services; green-oriented urban planning; resilient cities; urban green spaces; urban forests; urban agriculture 1. Introduction Cities occupy only 3% of the planet’s surface, but consume 75% of natural resources. More than half of the world’s population lives in cities, but by 2050 this percentage is expected to increase to almost 70% [1–4]. The development of these places depends on the fact that cities represent the core of a country’s economy, with urban agglomerations accounting for about 80% of production activities and services. Urban activities, therefore, generate heat and pollution in the environment, alter biological cycles and are among the causes of the often irreversible loss of biodiversity [2,5]. In Italy, according to the Legambiente report [6], out of 96 provincial capitals analysed in 2020, 35 exceeded the limits set by law for the daily concentration of particulate matter and 60 recorded an annual average of PM10 above the limits set by the WHO (20 μg/m 3 per year) to protect the health of citizens. The report “The climate has already changed”, drawn up by the CittàClima Observatory [7], shows that in the last 10 years, in Italy, there have been 946 extreme weather events in 507 municipalities. Floods, intense heat waves and tornadoes are just some of the extreme weather events that are increasingly frequent and intense in our urban centres. Sustainability 2022, 14, 2902. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14052902 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability