Singapore’s undeserved reputation for being dull is, mercifully, mostly behind it. Anyone who has visited recently will have seen those long-promised green shoots of growth and sophistication bearing lush fruit in everything from hospitality and design to entrepreneurship. Plus, doesn’t being safe, steady and predictable seem rather appealing today, given the fractious global backdrop?

But there’s a thorny issue that still threatens the country’s success. Having finally achieved the cultural and creative cachet that they craved, Singapore’s budding restaurant, retail and hotel scenes had a slower-than-hoped-for Q1. Rent rises from private developers and landlords are now fast outstripping what smaller businesses say that they can comfortably afford.

When good businesses on tight margins go under in a squeeze, their neighbourhoods pay a steep price. Once-thriving Tiong Bahru has lost some of its former lustre and you only need to look as far as the sad closure of the Thambi Magazine Store in Holland Village to see how one lively independent operator – of more than 80 years’ standing – can unite and delight an area, then leave it wanting when it’s gone.

The issue of peaking rental prices was unavoidable among the people I spoke to on a recent reporting trip with our Asia editor, James Chambers. One Singapore-based owner of a Japanese clothing brand told us about staging a trunk show in Seoul to test the market as costs soared at home. Two others in the hospitality trade told us about upcoming trips to Jakarta to scope out spaces where their money could go further (both near Plaza Indonesia, if you’re looking yourself).

Luckily, some solutions are close at hand. Our trip to New Bahru – a handsome school-turned-shopping precinct – is a lesson in what decent, walkable, human-scale design that brings local brands together can do for footfall (plenty). Owned by The Lo & Behold Group, the space’s 40 or so tenants include a great bookshop, a spa, restaurants, multi-brands and places to drink that offer daylong allure. It’s a blueprint for designing a destination from scratch and keeping the creatives close. A much-anticipated phase two opens next year.

Over dinner at Marcy’s on Duxton Road I discussed the matter with the seafood bistro’s owner, Goh Tong Hann, who returned to his native Singapore after a stint in New York and is now patiently building a small but influential F&B outfit called Pleasurecraft Group. While he insists that his success has been a matter of luck, Hann has also demonstrated a handy resourcefulness. Rather than forking out for expensive refits, for instance, he has put his talents into designing the restaurants (see Chinese restaurant Maggie’s for a flavour) and has quickly pivoted on concepts and spaces that weren’t working. It’s a post-pandemic success story among all too many less fortunate ones.

To see where rampant price inflation leads, you need only wander through one of the umpteen over-air-conditioned malls stuffed with samey international shops that have little in the way of personality. If Singapore wants to remain an exciting place to eat, drink and shop – and end the lazy chatter about it being boring once and for all – then it can’t afford to overlook the rent conundrum. It’s the city’s vibrancy that will suffer if rents continue to rise unchallenged.

Fehnert is Monocle’s editor. For more on the New Bahru development, read our report here. And for tips to help you get the most out of your stay in Singapore, read our City Guide.