Objectives Forecasting trends in sustainable sustainability levels in metropolitan areas serves as the foundation for developing development policies that are tailored to local conditions. Sustainability evaluation studies based on a multidimensional comprehensive index system fall short of highlighting the variability, systemic, and dynamic nature of metropolitan area development. To better understand the role of multidimensional scenarios in guiding the sustainable development of metropolitan areas, a greater emphasis on suburban spatial units and spatial heterogeneity characteristics is required.

Methods We simulate the trends of sustainable development levels of 16 municipal districts in Beijing,China from 2011 to 2030 by combining the system dynamics model and the shared socioeconomic pathways, and thus condense the metropolitan area's sustainable development model and compare the advantages and shortcomings of each development scenario under different models.

Results The findings show that: (1) Beijing's municipal districts perform differently in economic, social, and environmental subsystems, and there are three types of typical districts: Synergistic development, ecologically biased development, and economic constraint. (2) Shared socioeconomic pathway（SSP）1 is the most desirable urban sustainable development scenario among the four scenarios of SSP1, SSP2 (BAU（business-as-usual）), SSP3, and SSP5. (3) In order to achieve the transition from the historical trajectory to the SSP1 scenario, each district type should pursue a distinct development strategy. To improve the quality of coordinated development, synergistic development type zones should use social security and employment expenditures to compensate for the shortcomings of social development. Ecologically biased zones should reduce energy consumption and increase environmental protection investment to maintain environmental advantages, and economic constraint type zones can maintain high gross domestic product growth rates in the short term to get out of the development dilemma.

Conclusions The findings of this paper highlight the complex cause-and-effect relationships between urban economic, social, and environmental systems and offer a framework for system evaluation and simulation technology for the sustainable development of metropolitan areas. This framework will serve as a source of regulations and a foundation for management of urban refinement.