Strict control on low building footprint coverage and high accessory green area ratio has been two key urban planning control policies in Shanghai ever since the late 80s.Though regarded as urban land saving strategies,these two policies has provoked a trend in the construction of high-rise housing but hardly prevented the city from the conflict between limited developable land and increasing demands on living area.This paper started from rethinking on the land use efficiency of high-rise and lowdensity housing,following by a comparative study between the high-rise housing in Shanghai and four other density housing forms,which are mini-house in Tokyo,court yard housing in the example district of Barcelona,traditional court yard housing in Berlin and shop house in Hong Kong,to explore the differences of the regulations and actual use of space.The study reveals that the low-coverage policy can easily lead to poor accessibility,over consuming on ecological land and unbalanced housing supply system.Three main flaws are determined in the high-rise housing of Shanghai: the first is the high occupation of traffic area due to over-size land division and gated community system;the second is the anti-eco layout of green area due to the request for over 35% of accessory green for each project and the third is the mono-type of housing due to the incline of policy on private ownership development.This paper continued to take a look at the shared characteristics of the urban form in the four high-density housing types out of Shanghai to get the key notes in the structure of a compact urban form.In the conclusion part,the paper discusses alternatives to current municipal policy and regulations for amending the flaws in the future development of high-density housing in Shanghai.