Shanghai is the default landing pad for newly arrived expatriates in China. The city's scale — roughly 25 million people across a metropolitan area the size of a small country — means it absorbs foreign residents with a matter-of-fact efficiency that smaller Chinese cities cannot match. English signage is extensive on the metro, at hospitals, and in many public-facing service contexts. International food, international schools, international medical facilities: Shanghai has them all in quantity and at quality ranges from functional to genuinely high.
The trade-off is cost. Shanghai sits comfortably alongside Tokyo and Singapore as one of East Asia's more expensive cities for expats. A mid-range family lifestyle — international school, decent apartment in a well-connected district, weekend dinners out, occasional short-haul travel — requires a budget that would support a comfortable upper-middle-class life in most Western cities.