Abstract:The paper presents a summary of the experience of metropolitan development both international and domestic,and an analysis of Shanghai’s international status,regional background and development opportunities as well as a review of the effectiveness and the problems of suburban development in the past 10 years.Based on a comparison and an analysis,the paper puts forward a new spatial pattern of Shanghai’s suburban development with a nuclear,twoaxises and multicores.The adjustment content of urban development is proposed to be focusing on new towns and major townships. Finally,the paper presents the specific approaches including legislation and institutional building,public facility provision and railtransportationoriented development and so on.