Completely different city but with lots of hills (seven to be precise): Lisbon. The most dangerous areas are near the top of the hills in places like Bairro Alto, Sé, Alfama, while the main bottom of the hill, Baixa, is much better.
I believe Lisbon has a very low crime rate (for european standards) and my theory for more crime happening on the higher streets is pretty simple: on the bottom the streets are really big and there's lot of space while the streets on the top of the hills are really small so easier to be seen by the police when you're doing something evil.
I like thinking about these kind of relations though!
In Brazil (and probably elsewhere in South America), real estate values go down (and thus crime goes up) the higher you go on the hills. Basically, this is because walking up and down the hills is arduous and sucks, and thus people try to avoid living on the hills if they possibly can. Thus you end up with favelas.
If everyone had cars, or public transit, you would probably see better property values on hills, like you do in SF.
I believe Lisbon has a very low crime rate (for european standards) and my theory for more crime happening on the higher streets is pretty simple: on the bottom the streets are really big and there's lot of space while the streets on the top of the hills are really small so easier to be seen by the police when you're doing something evil.
I like thinking about these kind of relations though!