While Lakeshore and Lake Vista are among New Orleans' newer neighborhoods, the area includes the 18th century Old Spanish Fort, whose origins predate the official founding of the city.

The circa 1939 Lake Vista neighborhood is a fine example of the Garden City movement, and is much beloved by its residents for its superblock design devoid of thru-streets and possessing separate, non-intersecting vehicular and pedestrian networks.

Soil was dredged from the lake and a seawall constructed in a project started by the Orleans Levee Board in the 1920s and continued by the Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression.

A separate, all-pedestrian system of circulation is composed of small lanes, all of which flow into axial, pedestrian-only parkways of varying length that, in turn, meet at the center of the development.

The original vision for Lake Vista sought to support the pedestrian circulation network as the primary means of movement within the neighborhood by encouraging house designs where the house's front faced either the lane or the parkway; elevations on the vehicular street side were secondary in importance and typically hosted garages or carports.

Though some apartments were built, without frontage on a major thoroughfare the Streamline Moderne-style commercial structure commissioned for the town center struggled; today the building houses small offices.