Throughout history, Central Asia in the broadest sense of the term has had an interaction between steppe areas of seasonally migrating pastoralists (aka "nomads", although that can be a tad misleading because these groups usually had fixed territories they lived in) and more agricultural regions with towns and cities.

There are quite a few of agricultural areas with sedentary/urban societies across Inner Asia: the Tarim Basin in modern-day Xinjiang China, the Ferghana Valley in Uzbekistan/Tajikistan/Kyrgyzstan, and the areas around the Zeravshan, Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers (especially the Khwarezm area, which is the delta region where the Amu Darya empties into the Aral Sea).

These areas began agriculture fairly early in prehistory (that's outside of my area of knowledge so I won't hazard a guess, but it's in the thousands of years ago). And throughout history were home to some fairly large, rich cities: Samarkand, Bukhara, Merv, Kokand, Kashgar, and Turpan, among others. These were also major stops on the trans-Eurasian trade routes that collectively have come known as the Silk Road. The notable Islamic scholars Ibn Sina (Avicenna), al Farabi and al Biruni are all from these areas of Central Asia, and the Khwarezmian Empire (before being destroyed by Genghis Khan) was poweful enough that it controlled parts of Persia and the Islamic world outside of Central Asia. Many of these urban centers have lasted to the present day, and the urban Sarts have descendants among modern-day Uzbeks and Tajiks. The Uighurs as well remain in Xinjiang.

Often these sedentary groups had relatively favorable interactions with nomadic groups. The Uighurs of the Tarim Basin area had relatively favorable relations with Genghis Khan and his descendants: the Uighurs submitted to Mongol rule early, and because of their education and sophistication they played an important role in administering the Mongol Empire. The Dzhungars, a Western Mongol people, had a similar relationship with the more sedentary Tibetans in the 17th century (the title of Dalai Lama originally being given by the Dzhungar Khan).

It's also important to note that the boundary between sedentary peoples and nomadic peoples isn't always (or ever) a clear ethnic one. Sometimes it was simply different lifestyles in different areas, or even the same people doing different things at different stages of life. Timur (Tamerlane) had a nomadic "Kazakh" period as a young man, but ruled his empire from his home city of Samarkand in modern-day Uzbekistan. It's similar to Russian and Ukrainian peasants and serfs leaving their farmland to join Cossacks on the steppe. A lot of the idea that sedentary and nomadic peoples in Central Asia are separate nationalities with different identities comes from Soviet nationalities policy in the 1920s.

Souces:

Allworth, Edward. The Modern Uzbeks: From the 14th Century to the Present.

Olcott, Martha Brill. The Kazakhs

Soucek, Sviat. A History of Inner Asia