China is currently facing a wealth gap between urban and rural citizens that is widening at a dangerous rate. High growth rates have raised living standards tremendously, but people living in the countryside have seen little or none of this prosperity. Rural citizens are moving to the cities in large numbers in search of better opportunities, where they find themselves treated like second class citizens and forced to take second class jobs. In addition wealthy, urban Chinese have been buying up previously communal land in the countryside to build expensive housing projects and shopping centers that rural people will never be able to reap the benefit of. As this wealth gap widens further and rural Chinese are forced into even less desirable jobs, growing social discontent will threaten China's economic growth and political stability. China must figure out a way to incorporate the millions of rural citizens into the economic system in a more attractive and advantageous way, otherwise it will face a growing poor, jobless, disgruntled population that could take radical measures and drastically and rapidly affect the economy.