Created in partnership with Portfolio, Condé Nast's new business magazine, our city business guides offer guidance for business travelers hoping to maximize their productivity (and enjoyment) while on the road. Stay tuned for more guides in the months to come.

Real estate prices are up, cranes are visible on the skyline, and Hummers, of all things, can be spotted in the city's most fashionable neighborhoods. In recent years, a succession of massive skyscrapers stacked with office buildings, shops, luxury hotels, and achingly stylish restaurants have become the new centers of gravity in the capital. Roppongi Hills, Shiodome, and Marunouchi are just some of the names that meant nothing a few years ago. Designed by internationally recognized architects, these cities within cities are also havens for the harried business traveler, who can sleep, eat, and shop without ever needing to take a cab. The latest such complex is the Tokyo Mid-Town Complex in Roppongi, housing an art museum and the Japanese capital's first Ritz-Carlton.

Where to Sleep
International luxury hotel chains have been popping up all over the city in recent years, supplementing the tired Japanese offerings that suffered from a lack of reinvestment and renovations. Some of the biggest brand names are clustered around Ginza, in central Tokyo and one of the city's wealthiest neighborhoods, and the adjacent districts of Nihonbashi and Marunouchi. The Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Nihonbashi, for one, has the requisite lobby-in-the-sky-here on the thirty-eighth floor with floor-to-ceiling windows-and some of its rooms have views of Tokyo Bay or Mount Fuji. The Conrad, in nearby Shinbashi, has views of the futuristic Shiodome or the Hamarikyu Garden, as well as a first-rate 15,000-square-foot spa.

On a smaller scale, the Four Seasons in Marunouchi has just 57 rooms, but they're some of the biggest in any Tokyo hotel. Also close by is the venerable Imperial Hotel, long the favorite with older, moneyed Japanese.

Farther west, in the newer neighborhoods of the capital, the Grand Hyatt in the Roppongi Hills complex has become the preferred spot for travelers with business to do in the nearby Mori Tower, a skyscraper packed with foreign firms and Japanese IT companies. The hotel has also become the spot de rigueur for celebrities like David and Victoria Beckham, and Leonardo DiCaprio and other Hollywood movie stars attending the Japanese premieres of their movies, which invariably take place on a red carpet in the Roppongi Hills Arena. Its sister hotel, the Park Hyatt Tokyo, took a star turn the minute Sofia Coppola decided to use it as her set for the film Lost in Translation. Though it's located a little out of the way in Shinjuku, it's still the hotel of choice for many architects, fashion executives, and celebrities seeking some discretion and privacy.