Rural China is home to many small farms and traditional industries, but productivity is falling. There are not enough new industries to provide economic growth. Young people continue to leave rural areas for big cities. The situation is bad enough that Chinese President Xi Jinping has called on talented workers from the cities to move to the countryside. That is an unusual idea for a country where the growth of cities has been an important step toward prosperity. The ruling Communist Party appears to have several aims in calling for a return to rural areas. The party wants to avoid social unrest in highly populated areas. It also wants to increase spending all over the country and to control the fast growth in big cities. Party leaders also want to increase the power of rural areas, where an estimated 577 million people live.