There's the fact that they created a first world economy out of nothing, unlike the Gulf countries that just found oil under their feet.
Singapore has done extremely well economically.
But it's not cool. That's something else.
Tokyo, for example, is cool, fashion, music, films and computer games come out of Tokyo.
But that's very hard to say of Singapore.
Perhaps it's like Luxembourg and Lisbon.
Admittedly the link at the top is from Marginal Revolution where 'cool' may mean economically successful and interesting for policy makers.