Hong Kong's hub is shifting.

For years, the epicenter of the city has been Central, where gleaming skyscrapers and luxury-goods stores mix with squealing double-decker trolleys and steep alleys packed with cobblers and dim sum shops.

But increasingly, companies in this tightly packed district and surrounding area have started to spread out. The city is looking across Victoria Harbor to Kowloon, the peninsula at the tip of mainland China, at two emerging business districts that already have attracted some big names in finance.

The problem for Central is that the amount of top-quality office space has remained constant at about 23 million square feet for a decade, according to CBRE Group Inc., much less than the size of Midtown Manhattan and London's West End, Meantime, rents have quadrupled in that time, making Hong Kong office space among the most expensive in the world─although rents have declined recently.

One of the main reasons for the atrophy in Hong Kong's commercial real estate is that many buildings in Central are owned by several owners on a floor-by-floor, or even unit-by-unit, basis.

That makes it difficult for developers to replace the hundreds of tall, narrow buildings that give Hong Kong its distinctive pins-and-needles skyline. In cities such as London and New York, as these types of buildings have grown obsolete, they are replaced with towers offering the larger floor space that major corporations prefer.

In other cities, 'there'd be swaths of redevelopment, but not Hong Kong,' said Ed Farrelly, Hong Kong research director for CBRE.

That is making Kowloon an appealing alternative.

The 118-story International Commerce Centre in the business district on the west end of Kowloon peninsula already is home to Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse Group AG and Deutsche Bank AG, and more development is planned in the area.

Meantime, the government also has ambitious plans for Kowloon East, a gritty industrial neighborhood that includes the former Kai Tak airport. The amount of top-tier office space in this area has doubled to 8.9 million square feet in the past seven years, while a number of shipping and insurance companies, including Manulife Hong Kong, have relocated there.

But these two business districts are still in embryo and will take years to develop, particularly because adequate transportation links have yet to be built in Kowloon East, which is expected to supply most of the future office space. The delay will leave Hong Kong short nine million square feet of top-quality office space by 2020, CBRE estimates.

That demand increasingly is coming from mainland Chinese companies, said Sherman Sit, commercial sales and leasing director at Knight Frank. Last year, for example, Agricultural Bank of China 601288.SH +4.21% bought a 28-story building in Central for $629 million.

The migration across the harbor to Kowloon has been picking up steam since the financial crisis in 2008. Overall, big banks have dumped 500,000 square feet of space, mostly in Hong Kong Central, according to Cushman & Wakefield, helping push down rents there by 11% in 2012.

'There used to be a psychological barrier, when everything used to be about Central,' said Jonas Kan, a property analyst at Daiwa Capital Markets. 'The barrier has been broken.'

The International Commerce Center, which sits on reclaimed land, was finished in 2010. The area is slated for further development, including the construction of a high-speed rail link, scheduled for completion in 2015, to the mainland Chinese city of Guangzhou and beyond. The city also is building a $2.8 billion cultural hub there.

The old airport in Kowloon East was known for its harrowing approach, where planes passed so close to buildings that passengers could see laundry hanging, and pilots had to make a hard right turn just before landing. It was moved in 1998, and the city has been trying to spruce up a rare piece of open land ever since.

Back-office operations of several banks have relocated to the area. The city is funding street festivals, setting up an open-air concert venue under an elevated expressway, developing a waterfront promenade and planting thousands of bushes. A subway link to Central is scheduled to open in 2018.

Even though companies have come to terms with a move across the harbor, not every employee have been pleased. Most finance executives live on Hong Kong Island, many with just a short ride to Central. Singaporean Joy Kwek was an analyst at Morgan Stanley in 2007 when employees learned the company was moving to West Kowloon. She quit that job for one at Credit Suisse, only to find out that the Swiss bank was moving just upstairs from Morgan Stanley.

Ms. Kwek moved, too, much to the dismay of friends. 'They said it was suicide, social suicide,' said Chris Jackson, her husband, who works for a hedge fund in Central.

The couple, who have one child and another on the way, now say they love their neighborhood, just a few minutes' walk from Ms. Kwek's office, which they call more 'stroller-friendly' than the steep inclines of Mid-Levels, an upscale neighborhood adjacent to Central. And, they note, Central is only a 15-minute subway ride away.

But even as Hong Kong pushes forward to cultivate new districts, said Gavin Morgan, international director at Jones Lang LaSalle, the city shouldn't forget its strength─the sheer, unrivaled compactness of the place. Unlike London or Beijing, where it is possible to have four meetings in a day, he said, in Hong Kong, you can have as many as seven.

'Businesses love Hong Kong because it's incredibly efficient,' said Mr. Morgan. 'Most everywhere else in the world sprawls, but Hong Kong rises. There's nowhere else like it.'

香港的中心正在转移。

多年来，香港的中心一直是中环，这里有熠熠发光的摩天大楼和奢侈品商店，也有吱吱嘎嘎驶过的双层有轨电车，以及满是修鞋店和早茶店的深巷。

但拥挤不堪的香港中环和周边地区有越来越多的企业开始向外走。企业纷纷开始将目光投向维多利亚港另一边、连着中国内地的九龙半岛。在九龙，两个初具规模的商务区已吸引了金融行业的多家知名企业。

Jerome Favre/Bloomberg图片：九龙──香港新中环中环的问题在于，据世邦魏理仕(CBRE Group Inc.)的数据显示，10年来高端写字楼面积一直稳定地保持在约2,300万平方英尺（约214万平方米），比曼哈顿中城和伦敦西区都要少很多。与此同时，10年中租金上涨了三倍，从而使香港写字楼进入世界上最贵之列──不过租金最近有所回落。

香港商业房地产供应紧张的主要原因之一在于中环的很多建筑都是由多个业主所有，不同层甚至不同单元都由不同的业主所有。

这令开发商很难对数百幢狭窄的高层建筑进行改造，这些高楼形成了香港特有的针毡似的天际线。在伦敦和纽约等城市，这类建筑已经逐渐被淘汰，被能提供受大公司青睐的更大办公空间的高楼所取代。

世邦魏理仕的香港研究主管范伟年(Ed Farrelly)说，在其他城市会有大面积的重新开发项目，但香港却没有。

这使得九龙成了很有吸引力的替代选择。

位于九龙半岛西端商务区的118层环球贸易广场(International Commerce Centre)已经是摩根士丹利(Morgan Stanley)、瑞信集团(Credit Suisse Group AG)和德意志银行(Deutsche Bank AG)的办公地，这一地区还有更多开发项目正在规划中。

同时，政府对东九龙也有规模宏大的计划，这是一片多沙的工业区，曾经的启德机场就坐落于此。过去七年，这一地区的顶级写字楼面积增加了一倍，达到890万平方英尺（约合82.7万平方米），众多船运和保险公司都迁到了这里，其中包括宏利香港(Manulife Hong Kong)。

但这两个商务区都刚刚开始发展，将需要多年时间开发，尤其因为东九龙尚需充分建设交通枢纽。预计东九龙将提供大多数未来的写字楼空间。世邦魏理仕估计，这一延迟将令香港在2020年之前出现900万平方英尺（约83.6万平方米）的顶级写字楼空间缺口。

莱坊(Knight Frank)的商业销售和租赁主管西特(Sherman Sit)说，需求越来越多地来自中国内地公司。举例来说，中国农业银行(Agricultural Bank of China)以6.29亿美元买下了中环一幢28层建筑。

自2008年金融危机以来，公司跨越维多利亚湾迁至九龙的趋势一直在升温。据高纬环球(Cushman & Wakefield)的数据显示，大型银行共空出了500,000平方英尺（约合4.6万平方米）的办公面积，大部分是在香港中环。受此推动，2012年香港中环租金降了11%。

大和资本市场(Daiwa Capital Markets)房地产分析师Jonas Kan说，过去曾有一种心理障碍，当时一切都是围着中环转。如今这种心理障碍已被打破了。

环球贸易广场建在填海形成的土地上，已于2010年完工。该地区计划进行更多的开发项目，包括建设一条连接九龙和内地城市广州等地的高速铁路，这条高速铁路定于2015年完工。九龙还将建设一个规模28亿美元的文化中心。

位于九龙东的旧机场以飞机起降飞行难度大而闻名。在这个旧机场，飞机飞行时与建筑物靠得非常近，乘客们甚至可以看到屋外晾晒的衣服，飞行员不得不在飞机马上就要降落之前使飞机来个很急的右转弯。机场于1998年被移走，九龙此后一直在努力美化这块难得的空地。

数家银行的后勤部门已经搬至这里。九龙开始资助街头节日庆祝活动，在一条高架公路下设立了一个露天音乐会场，在海边建了一条散步长廊，种植了数千株灌木。一条通往中环的地铁线路定于2018年开通。

尽管公司接受了搬至维多利亚港另一侧的九龙这一事实，但并非每个员工都感到满意。大部分金融高管住在香港岛，很多距离中环很近。2007年，新加坡人Joy Kwek在摩根士丹利担任分析师，当时员工们得知公司将搬到西九龙。她辞了职，跳槽到瑞信，却发现这家瑞士银行将搬到摩根士丹利的楼上。

令朋友们伤心的是，Kwek也随公司搬走了。她的丈夫杰克逊(Chris Jackson)说，他们说这无异于自杀，社交上的自杀。杰克逊在中环的一只对冲基金工作。

他们夫妇两人有一个孩子，很快第二个孩子就将诞生。如今他们说，他们喜欢现在居住的这个社区，这里距离Kwek的办公室只要走几分钟的路。他们说，相比半山区的陡坡，这里更方便童车行驶。半山区是中环附近的一个高档社区。他们还指出，从这里到中环乘地铁只要15分钟。

但仲量联行(Jones Lang LaSalle)的国际业务主管莫家文(Gavin Morgan)说，在香港推进新区的建设之际，香港不应忘记自己的优势──无与伦比的紧凑空间。他说，与一天可能举行四场会议的伦敦或北京不同的是，在香港，每天最多可能举行七场会议。

莫家文说，企业喜爱香港，因为这里非常高效。世界上大部分其他地区是向四周发展，而香港是向上发展。没有哪个地方像香港一样。