The side-passage plan, as it evolved in Kentucky, is primarily an urban type, dictated by the constraints of narrow urban lots and the combination of businesses with living space.

The Philadelphia house, found both in its namesake city, and in urban centers across the mid-Atlantic, could serve as a model for the urban side-passage plan in Kentucky.[1] Many side-passage plans had a business on the ground floor and the living space and family quarters on the second floor. The side-passage still allowed the occupants to control the passage of visitors. The ease of this plan adapting to both commercial and residential use would explain its popularity within town centers.

[1]Gabrielle M. Lanier and Bernard L. Herman. Everyday Architecture of the Mid-Atlantic. (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1991), 32.