Your best bets: a small handful of “property-wealth islands,” including San Francisco and San Jose/Silicon Valley, both seen as “primary 24-hour gateways located along global pathways,” according to a report being released today at the Urban Land Institute conference in San Francisco.

San Francisco ranks third out of 51 cities as a place to invest in and develop commercial and multifamily apartment properties and fourth in for-sale home building, with San Jose two or three rungs lower in each category, according to the survey compiled by the institute and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Washington, Austin and New York are the other top-rated cities.

“We come out very well as top investment places, although even here it’s still a bit of a chug,” said Kate White, executive director of ULI San Francisco.

Put the “chug” down to the enduring doldrums in the housing market, which continues to weigh on San Francisco and San Jose, if not as badly as in other parts of the Bay Area and nation. Even though both rank high in the home-building category, according to the report, their prospects for investment and development are described only as “fair.”

“There’s still an understandable reluctance by potential homeowners to get into the market,” said White.

Not so, however, when it comes to renting or leasing commercial space in high-tech areas like San Francisco’s Mid-Market and South of Market, a trend driven largely by the influx of a younger, more mobile and urban-oriented workforce.

“Gen Y is driving up the demand for apartments and driving up rents, which makes investing in apartments a safer bet,” said White.

Depending on how long it lasts, such a trend could be a game-changer for real estate.

“Living smaller, closer to work, and preferably near mass transit holds increasing appeal as more people look to manage expenses wisely,” notes the report. “More companies concentrate in urban districts where sought-after generation-Y talent wants to locate in 24-hour environments.”

A separate Urban Land Institute report, examining land use changes in California, takes the point further.

Projecting out to 2035, the report says demand for traditional single- family homes will decline, by as much as 10 percent, while “changing demographics” and other factors shift the real estate focus to smaller lots and “multiple or intergenerational households” within walking distance of “transit station areas.”

“California’s future is a lot more urban and transit-oriented than it has been historically. There’ll be an increasing demand for the 24-hour, livable city model,” said White. “The next generation is ushering it in, and local agencies need to plan accordingly.”

– These and other provocative notions will be chewed over at the ULI conference, today in San Francisco at the Hotel Nikko, and Wednesday at the Corinthian Event Center in San Jose. Agenda, speakers and registration at sfg.ly/sDt7tE.

The ULI/PwC report, “Emerging Trends in Real Estate 2012,” can be read and downloaded at sfg.ly/rKT6up.

The California land use report, “The New California Dream: How Demographic and Economic Changes May Shape the Housing Market,” is at sfg.ly/stQrNV.

Blogging: www.sfgate.com/columns/bottomline. Facebook page: sfg.ly/doACKM. Tweeting: @andrewsross. E-mail: bottomline@sfchronicle.com.

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“California’s economy is actually healthier than popular or pundit opinion would suggest,” says Christopher Thornberg, president of Beacon Economics. Despite the unacceptably high 11.7 percent unemployment rate – 2 million Californians still out of work – the economic trend line is up. “Considering that employment is a lagging indicator of overall health, it is clear that California is solidly in a new growth phase,” Thornburgh says in his firm’s latest employment analysis.

Stephen Levy, director of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy, notes that California has added close to 250,000 jobs in the past year, a bigger percentage gain – albeit a paltry 1.7 percent – than the nation as a whole.

“The industry pattern is positive for the future with gains in professional, technical, scientific and information services, and a rebound in manufacturing activity and continuing export gains,” says Levy.

Nationally, chimes in Ken Rosen, chairman of the Fisher Center for Real Estate Urban Economics at UC Berkeley‘s Haas School of Business, “employment growth will be stronger than thought.” In his annual Economic and Real Estate Outlook presented last week, Rosen forecasts a net gain of 1.6 million jobs in 2012.

And which urban areas lead the pack, employment-wise? San Francisco and San Jose (Silicon Valley). Despite an 8.1 percent unemployment rate, “San Francisco is No. 1 in the country for job growth,” thanks largely to the latest tech boom.

But, the recovery remains “slow and choppy,” said Rosen, and can be derailed by, for example, Europe’s debt crisis.

And it’s not working for those who aren’t in the professions Levy mentions above, or for the millions caught in the jaws of the mortgage meltdown. (More than a quarter of the subprime loans out there are 30 days or more delinquent, according to Rosen’s report.)

“This has become a bifurcated economy,” and we need people in Washington who will honestly step up and help fix it,” he said.

Yes, the flip side of this year’s Thanksgiving.

Help needed: Natural Resources, the well-known and much appreciated pregnancy and early parenting resource center on San Francisco’s Valencia Street, is in trouble.

Voted this year’s “Best Shop for Parents To Be” by Bay Guardian readers, the 25-year-old center is on the verge of going out of business. Tough economic times have taken their toll and attempts to get new financial partners or even sell the business have failed. So the owners have turned elsewhere for help in getting $45,000 by 11:59 p.m. Monday to keep the doors open.

As of Wednesday afternoon, a community fundraising drive had raised $33,246. If the goal is not reached by the deadline, I’m told Natural Resources will return all the donations received ( www.naturalresources-sf.com).

Merit badges: Every year since 2000, the Consumer Electronics Association has inducted inventors and industry leaders into its Hall of Fame. Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell were among the first, along with Bay Area alums, including the late Philo T. Farnsworth, Atari founder Nolan Bushnell and Ray Dolby of San Francisco’s Dolby Systems.

Steve Jobs made it into the hall in 2009, five years after Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.

Joining that illustrious company this year are two more from the Bay Area – retired SanDisk CEO Eli Harari and Sam Runco, a pioneer of large-screen video projectors, whose company, Runco International, trademarked the name “home theater.”

“His namesake company became the most innovative and highly respected projection television makers in the world,” said the association.

Harari, co-founder of SanDisk, a multinational company headquartered in Milpitas, came up with a precursor to flash memory and “helped launch the flash memory revolution to become the global leader in flash memory cards,” the organization said.

One other inductee with Bay Area connections is Robert Metcalfe, who, with fellow computer scientist David Boggs, invented the Ethernet while working at Xerox PARC in Palo Alto in 1973. Metcalfe later went on to found 3Com.

Blogging: www.sfgate.com/columns/bottomline. Facebook page: sfg.ly/doACKM. Tweeting: @andrewsross. E-mail: bottomline@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page D – 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

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