 How is Earth perceived in this story?
By LESTER DEL REY Illustrated by JOHNS NEARLY TWO hundred years of habit carried the chairman of Exodus Corporation through the morning ritual of crossing the executive floor. But with the Procyon shuttle arriving yesterday, there was no telling what might turn up. They found it drifting half a light-year out and captured it. For eighty years now, they’d been sending out the little ships that vanished at greater than the speed of light, equipped with every conceivable device to make them return automatically after taking pictures of wherever they arrived. So far, none had ever returned or been located. This was the first hope they’d found that the century-long trips between stars in the ponderous shuttles might be ended and he should have been filled with excitement at Jordan’s hasty preliminary report. The little ship apparently had been picked up by accident when it almost collided with a Sirius-local ship. Scientists there had puzzled over it, reset it and sent it back. Only his youngest son would have sent an elaborate tercentenary greeting verse—one that would arrive ninety years too late! Harry had been born just before Earth passed the drastic birth limitation act and his mother had spoiled him. He barely mentioned being married on the way or his dozen children, but filled most of the frame with glowing description and a plea for his father to join him there! GILES SNORTED and turned to the third frame, which showed a group picture of the family in some sort of vehicle, against the background of an alien but attractive world. He had no desire to spend ninety years cooped up with a bunch of callow young emigrants, even in one of the improved Exodus shuttles. And even if Exodus ever got the super-light drive working, there was no reason he should give up his work. The discovery that men could live practically forever had put an end to most family ties; sentiment wore thin in half a century—which wasn’t much time now, though it had once seemed long enough. If he looked that bad— But Jordan wasn’t looking at him; the man’s interest lay in the projected picture from Harry, across the desk from the communicator. It was enough like an old model Earth conveyance to pass casual inspection, but it floated wheellessly above the ground. Faint blur lines indicated it had been moving when the picture was taken. Earth was becoming a backwater world; no real progress had been made in two centuries; the young men were sent out as soon as their first fifty years of education were finished, and the older men were too conservative for really new thinking.
 it is a weaker planet now because few discoveries are taking place there
 it's run by an intelligent, motivated Council  it is a weaker planet now because few discoveries are taking place there  it's in the center of all of the other planets, so it's visited often  people want to live there, as it's the richest planet