Hooray. Another high-rise office tower. Another five-star hotel. Another premium shopping mall. Another Starbucks. And don't forget culture. With this new development, Tokyo will show the world the richness of Japan's civilization and society.

Such is the tone of the promotion for Mitsui Fudosan's new flagship development in Roppongi, Tokyo Midtown, which will have its public opening Friday. Most people will go along with the hype. After all, the mixed-use development is impressive: a tall tower dressed in shimmering glass, a four-level, top-lit shopping arcade, a high-end hotel and exclusive condomin- iums, an art museum and a design venue, a medical center and a even pet hairdressing salon -- a complete haven for the well-groomed urbanite. Materials are expensive and carefully coordinated; richly veined marble, brushed metal and laminated hardwood is spread about with such lavish abandon that even as a visitor you feel positively regal. Lighting is subtle and layered, orchestrated with a photographer's eye. It all looks and sounds and smells like the epitome of urban luxury. But can it, as is claimed in its promotional literature, "show the future model of a city that creates new values"?

The effort and expense have not gone unnoticed by arbiters of global taste. Tyler Bru^le, founder of influential style magazine Wallpaper*, recently opined in the International Herald Tribune that "among workers and residents in similar developments in London and New York, Midtown is likely to become an object of some envy." It may also cause concern, if not exactly envy, at nearby Roppongi Hills, until now the most ambitious and internationally visible such development in Japan this decade. What exactly does Midtown offer, and what does it mean for Roppongi, Tokyo and beyond?