More than half of Chinese residents surveyed recently consider the country's environmental situation to be poor, and nearly 60 percent hope the government will give priority to environmental protection when boosting economic growth.

The survey was part of an annual report on people's livelihoods in China, which was released by the Public Opinion Research Laboratory of Shanghai Jiao Tong University on Thursday. It polled more than 8,500 residents of the country's 35 cities through computer-assisted telephone interviews, trying to assess people's basic living conditions and how they view the government's public services and hot social issues.

In the survey on environmental issues, about 83 percent of polled residents said the cities where they live experience smog, and about one-third said the smoggy conditions in their cities are serious.

In Beijing, Harbin, Hefei, Nanjing, Shanghai, Wuhan and Zhengzhou, more than 60 percent of respondents said the smog is serious.

The report said residents paid close attention to smog, and about 41 percent said they always pay attention to it.