Urban economic growth in Shandong Province, China has been steadily increasing, but different cities show varying levels of growth. By using a statistical method called Local Moran's I, researchers analyzed the spatial autocorrelation of economic growth in 17 cities from 2000 to 2015. They found that cities on the east coast clustered together with high economic growth, while cities in the central west region clustered with low growth. This indicates that there is an imbalance in economic growth across Shandong Province due to its geographical distribution.