China’s Next Potential Boom Spot: The Places People Overlookbr His improved lifestyle, Mr. Luo said, “is the difference between being poor and having money.”br Nearby, Cheng Zhiguo, 47, also enlarged his farm this year, increasing his net income to about $23,000 — five times greater than just three years ago.br In the prefecture that contains Liangduo, Yancheng, locals’ wallets are fattening more quickly than the national rate,br and their household spending — which surged 8 percent per person in 2016 — outpaced the rises in Beijing and Shanghai.br Mr. Zhou, a 33-year-old resident of Nanjing, a major city in eastern China, figured that large-scale farming would also need more money.br Thanks to China’s digital revolution, advances in farmingbr and billions of dollars spent on thousands of miles of new highways and railways, Chinese people away from the biggest cities are responding.