More than 90 percent of the people quizzed in a new survey said they knew people living and working in different cities, according to results released this week.

In the survey, conducted by the China Youth Daily Social Investigation Center through websites minyi.net.cn and sina.com, 40.4 percent of the 2,908 participants said they themselves are following this lifestyle.

Among the participants, nearly 64 percent regarded such long commutes as the "only choice", 53.5 percent thought high house prices in big cities led to the phenomenon, and 51.4 percent believed it was caused by people's desire to pursue a better career.

Li Lin, working in Shanghai in the wind power industry, flies to Beijing every weekend as his wife and child live in the Chinese capital. He has also worked in other provinces, but has maintained the flight routine for eight years.

"I now fly about 10,000 km a month. Although it is very tiring, my career has developed, and my wife and I have no complaints about the lifestyle," Li said.

He sometimes thinks about working in Beijing. But "Perhaps I will feel uncomfortable to go back home everyday after work," he added.

Over 80 percent of the survey participants agreed that the "two-city lifestyle" would become more and more popular among Chinese people.

Yang Chen, an IT technician working in China's northern city of Shijiazhuang, said that it was normal for people to live and work in different cities when he studied in Japan in 2000.

"I had a part-time job in another city different from where I studied, and lived in a city between those two," Yang explained. "I didn't find it hard to travel among the tree cities, for public transportation was very convenient."

Yang said that, with the development of Chinese high-speed railways and public transportation, more people would have the option of living in different cities from where they work.

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