Airbnb Neighborhoods: Last word in picking best place to stay?

A look at the Airbnb Neighborhoods page for Rio de Janeiro, one of seven cities the company is featuring at the launch of the new service.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

SAN FRANCISCO -- Airbnb, a leader in the short-term rental market, today unveiled Airbnb Neighborhoods, the company's first attempt at comprehensive neighborhood guides aimed at giving renters a way to pick the best location for their needs in large cities.

At launch, the new service offers the guides for seven cities: Rio de Janeiro, New York, San Francisco, London, Berlin, Paris, and Washington, D.C.

The idea behind the new service is addressing the possibility that people using Airbnb to find a place to stay in a large city can be overwhelmed by choosing the most appropriate part of town, given the large number of listings available in Airbnb's biggest markets.

In each city, visitors will be able to select from a number of different criteria that are important to them -- shopping, dining, proximity to major attractions, or easy public transportation -- and then the system will generate a list of possible rentals that meet those criteria.

Each city neighborhood section has been designed to provide a rich set of photos illustrating the area's best and most interesting features, along with its description, and a set of tags that help define it. There's al... [Read more]