Urbanisation is a global megatrend that has introduced both challenges and opportunities for sustainable development. Cities are developed through urban development projects (UDPs), which enable growth, provide valuable services to citizens, and play a central role in addressing sustainability-related challenges. It is not clear exactly how—and to what extent—citizens are engaged by municipal and private actors initiating such endeavours. To shed light on this issue, we carried out a systematic cross-disciplinary literature review focusing on the involvement of the public in UDPs. Based on the final sample of 75 articles, our analysis reveals 16 distinct mechanisms of public participation, which differ with respect to the initiating actor(s), project-life-cycle phase, role of citizens and depth of participation. We find that most mechanisms involve members of the public in peripheral roles, limiting the potential for further value creation.