Every morning in any major city, the same rhythm unfolds: glowing screens before sunrise, notifications competing for attention, crowded commutes, and an endless stream of decisions that pull at our mental reserves. We budget our finances and schedule our time — yet we rarely consider the resource we spend first and replenish last: our energy.
Karlygash Dadenova.
This is a quiet global crisis. Modern urban life drains mental and emotional energy long before people set foot in their offices. But while governments invest in roads, bridges, and technology, they often overlook the part of urban design that determines whether citizens can stay focused, calm, and resilient: the presence of living, restorative nature.
Some cities have begun to recognize this. My own city, Astana, offers a powerful example. Built on an open steppe with almost no trees and a harsh continental climate, it had every reason to assume that a green future was out of reach. But over decades, strategic planting programs transformed its environment. Today, young forests soften winds, temperatures feel less brutal, and parks and boulevards shape a gentler urban identity. If a city built on bare grassland can reshape its climate, then any city can reshape the way it restores its people.
And yet, even as Astana grows greener, the pace of modern life grows faster. Like many global capitals, it is expanding, densifying, and digitalizing — and with growth comes exhaustion that no amount of ambition can hide. This challenge is not unique to Astana. It is shared by cities across continents: from Seoul to Toronto, London to Dubai, São Paulo to Almaty. Urban life demands enormous psychological energy, but almost never gives it back.
I didn’t fully understand how essential this “energy refill” is until my visit to Singapore.
Singapore is meticulously efficient, but its greatest achievement may be something surprisingly gentle: the Singapore Botanic Gardens, a UNESCO-listed sanctuary that functions as the city’s emotional engine. Entering the gardens at sunrise felt like stepping into another dimension — one designed not for work, but for recovery.
The smell was the first thing that struck me: a soft blend of orchids, wet grass, and tropical blooms, warm and sweet in the morning air. The trees created a living canopy overhead, with light filtering through leaves like shifting glass patterns.
In one meadow, elderly residents were performing morning exercises in calm synchronization, their movements slow and unforced. At the edge of a quiet lake — no bridge, no railings, just still water — children crouched with their parents, feeding tiny turtles that paddled toward them. Two black swans glided across the lake, leaving ripples that looked almost painted. A squirrel dashed between branches; a large monitor lizard moved confidently near the path. Above me, birds called in layers, from small chirps to the unmistakable crow of a proud rooster.
It was a city — yet it felt like a sanctuary. The garden didn’t demand anything. It gave. It returned something most cities routinely take: mental clarity. Soft attention. A feeling of being unhurried.
And standing there, breathing in the warm floral air, I understood something simple but profound: this is infrastructure.
Research from Stanford, the Max Planck Institute, and the University of Exeter shows that biodiverse nature — not lawns, not concrete parks, but life — dramatically accelerates recovery from stress.
People’s heart rates fall faster.
Cortisol levels drop deeper.
Emotional regulation strengthens.
Cognitive fatigue declines.
Nature is not an amenity. It is an urban necessity.
Yet many cities still treat it as optional. They build parks without wildlife, paths without shade, and “green spaces” that cannot support a single bird. Some cities blame climate: too cold, too hot, too dry, too humid.
But Astana’s transformation shows that climate is not an obstacle to creating environments that restore people. And Singapore shows that even in dense megacities, restorative nature can be placed at the very center of urban life.
The real obstacle is not climate — it is imagination.
If we want cities that don’t mentally deplete their citizens by noon, policymakers must treat natural restoration as essential infrastructure. Three deliberate choices can change the trajectory:
1. Build “living parks,” not decorative ones.
2.Integrate nature into daily routes.
3. Protect green space as strictly as transportation networks.
Astana taught me that climate is no excuse. Singapore taught me that nature can make a city feel human again.
The future belongs to cities that understand a simple truth: humans, like batteries, cannot run on empty — and nature is the one charger powerful enough to keep us going.
The author is Karlygash Dadenova, a graduate student of the Nazarbayev University Graduate School of Public Policy.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of The Astana Times.
