The trend of climate warming and deeper globalization is adding new content to urban risks in Shanghai, resulting in the adaption of traditional comprehensive defense planning to the new environment. Based on the resilient city theory, this paper proposes a transition for Shanghai from an original comprehensive defense to a resilient city vision through strategic framework and approaches from the three aspects of engineering technology, spatial defense, and social governance in the New Normal age. Meanwhile, it suggests that Shanghai should use information technology to enhance the level of risk monitoring and to improve engineering design standards; strengthen the resilience from the scales of “life circle-urban circle-municipal administrative area”; and innovate as well as improve the social safety governance. The trend of climate warming and more globalization is adding new content to urban risks in Shanghai, resulting in the adaption of traditional comprehensive defense planning to the new environment. Based on the resilient city theory, this paper proposes a transition for Shanghai from an original comprehensive defense to a resilient city vision through strategic framework and approaches from the three aspects of engineering technology, spatial defense, and social governance in the New Normal age. Meanwhile, it suggests that Shanghai should use information technology to enhance the level of risk monitoring and to improve engineering design standards; strengthen the resilience from the scales of “life circle-urban circle-municipal administrative area”; and innovate as well as improve the social safety governance.