NEW SMART CITY CLUSTERS’ CONSTRUCTION LEVEL EVALUATION UNDER ECONOMIC CIRCLES: THE CASE OF SHANDONG, CHINA
以山东省新型智慧城市群为对象，采用熵值法和莫兰指数，从社会民生、经济生产、创新驱动和保障措施四个维度分析建设水平与空间差异，发现省会经济圈建设不均衡且极化，胶东经济圈较好但经济带动能力需提升，鲁南经济圈低城镇化率导致建设水平低，需发展数字乡村。
China’s Shandong Province plans to create a new smart city cluster that is developmentfocused, demand-led, people-oriented, and data-driven. This entails the scientific assessment of construction levels, analysis of potential hurdles, and formulation of upgraded strategies. However, existing research has mainly focused on measuring single or multiple traditional smart cities, therein overlooking the construction level of new smart city clusters. Thus, this study takes the new smart city clusters in Shandong Province and uses both entropy method and the Moran index to analyze the construction level and spatial differences in the four dimensions of social livelihood, economic production, innovation-driven development, and safeguard measures. Results show that the construction level of the provincial capital economic circle is uneven and has polarization issues. Meanwhile, the construction level of Jiaodong economic circle is relatively good, although the economic driving capacity needs further improvement. The low urbanization rate of the Lunan economic circle occupies a gathering zone with low construction levels, making the construction of digital villages necessary. Targeted suggestions in improving the radiationdriven capacity of core cities, improving digital infrastructure, and developing smart industries are then forwarded to promote the establishment of new smart city clusters and achieve top-notch economic growth.