Rapid urbanization has created numerous challenges for cities globally. Smart city initiatives that leverage data and technology have emerged as an approach to address urban challenges through evidence-based planning and management. In this context, geovisualization and geovisual analytics have become valuable tools that allow urban planners, designers and decision-makers to gain insights from spatial data through interactive visualization, computational analysis and exploration. This paper undertakes a comprehensive review of the state of these geospatial intelligence technologies in enabling smarter city planning and design. It highlights the rising importance of geovisualization and analytics in understanding multifaceted urban dynamics. The paper explains how representing statistical data in visual spatial contexts reveals geographic patterns leading to meaningful insights for decision making. It demonstrates applications across use cases spanning land use suitability analysis, transportation planning, energy optimization, public participation and emergency response. The paper also identifies key limitations around data availability, technical skills, organizational integration and ethical risks that deter adoption at scale. It suggests potential solutions like stakeholder training programs, streamlined data policies, decentralized privacy-preserving platforms and communication of uncertainty. This study contributes by revealing the immense potential of geointelligence tools in enabling evidence-based urban policymaking while also highlighting real-world constraints that require focused interventions for assimilation at scale. The suggested future research directions can guide policy makers and technology leaders to harness geospatial capabilities for data-driven governance and human-centric smart city development.