Bay Area cities are rebounding from the housing crash in wildly different ways, confirming the adage that the three most important rules for home buying are location, location, location. Many affluent cities are nearing the stratospheric prices reached during the housing bubble, but others, primarily middle-income and working class, are far from recovering from the depths of the crash. That disparity can be seen even in communities next door to one another. East Palo Alto’s median home price is $246,000 in the current quarter, down 6% from $650,000 in the second quarter of 2007. But just across 101, leafy Palo Alto, home to many high-tech companies and entrepreneurs, has a median house price of $1.4 million, just 12% below the peak reached in 2008.