seoul has city planners, hell, my cousin applied to be one. it's just that unlike in the us, city planners are empowered to get nimbys to shut the hell up and go and build things
it's less a case of city planners being empowered and more a case of property rights being absolute (similar to Japan, France or Germany) which gives property and land owners the right to do whatever they want (within the confines of national regulation), which leads to development towards economic demands naturally.
This is also why Seoul or many Japanese cities look so individualistic and mosaic like from one lot to the other as the author describes in the article.
