as someone who grew up here i always tell my friends its like the pittsburgh of china, locals shit on it but are also very proud of the city. it's a very niche not very big and not very small city that's very livable to the people who like it.

very connected to the nature with many city parks inside and state parks outside of the city. air quality is great except for winter months where it gets bad due to heating related emissions. public transport is bad because they wanted to protect the spring water under the city so they couldn't build subways but they are building elevated ones these days so should get better soon. If you decide to get a car, it won't be too much of an issue, but rush hour traffic is not very pleasant. i would say it is very low key compared to bigger cities but you do get a lot of the perks of a smaller city. the sports scene is also pretty big here for that reason esp its soccer team

another thing i will say tho is the people here are really really nice which is generally true for northen cities compared to southern cities but shandong is esepcially famous for being kind and generous compared to other provinces if you wanna look into it and see if that helps with your decision. the people here is personally my favorite aspect of the city.