They say good things come in threes. The government’s new household projections tell three big stories and present three big issues for policymakers. So are they good or bad?

Let’s look at the stories first. First, we’ll see higher housing demand in the next 20 years, especially around cities. Most of this will be in London and the wider south east. But a surprising amount will be in the north and midlands. Big cities like Leeds and Manchester are doing better, and if their economies continue to grow we should expect a larger share of household growth across their wider city-regions.

Second, we’ll see a lot more single people - and over half of these will be older singles, aged 45 or more. And third, as a result we’ll see fewer family households. People are living alone for longer.

The government - and cities - want to focus housing growth on brownfield land, in and around city cores. So where are these new households going to go, and how can we cater for emerging markets?

The first big issue is older singles. City centre housing markets are booming, but dominated by the young. We could see a different mix in places like Liverpool’s docklands. But as we found in our City people research, right now city centres aren’t attractive places for the over-40s to live. They will need to look and feel different, and this will be expensive - and risky, since older people may well prefer houses to flats. So cities may prefer to steer older singles into the inner ring neighbourhoods around the edge of city centres, which can offer a better mix of services, security and space.

The second big issue is delivering the neighbourhood offer. It is far harder to deliver sustainable communities than it should be. Delivery agencies currently face cultural and capacity barriers, unhelpful funding formulae and big funding gaps.

Ministers are in listening mode - a major review of infrastructure funding was announced in the pre-budget report, to feed into next year’s spending review.

The government is also exploring small-scale funding tools - planning gain supplement, and extended section 106 agreements like the Milton Keynes roof tax. But none of these will raise enough cash. The main issue is coordinating and aligning mainstream Whitehall funding.

The third big issue is planning. This is the big unknown. In November, the government unveiled draft planning policy statement 3. Overall, this looks helpful for cities - maintaining a brownfield focus while giving local areas more flexibility on density and housing mix.

But the whole planning system is also under review. The new Barker planning team has a huge remit to cover before it reports back at the end of this year.

It’s possible the review could recommend shifting the brownfield/greenfield mix in some places, with profound consequences for city housing strategies.

So what does all this mean? These latest numbers paint a mixed picture. London, the north west and the midlands look set to attract most of the new households over the next 20 years. These areas should start planning for a different mix of families and single people, make their inner-ring neighbourhoods more attractive and aim to retain new residents. But other lower demand areas such as the north east face the more difficult challenge of managing slower, or even negative, population growth.