Airbnb is not just taking over big cities, it’s going after small towns: Airbnb is experimenting with building a community centre for a small village in Japan through Samara, a design studio which they are about to reveal this week, Cliff Kuang writes for Co.Design. They are starting with a small town in Japan, coming from the idea that Japan’s aging population and the youth’s migration to bigger cities have left houses abandoned in smaller cities. And Airbnb saw an opportunity there. Airbnb’s Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, and Nathan Blecharczyk worked with architect Go Hasegawa to design a community centre in Yoshino town in Japan’s Nara Prefecture, which would serve the community and attract tourists to stay. “The idea is that Airbnb could become a force not only in sharing homes, but in urban planning,” writes Kuang. The building is now at Tokyo’s House Vision exhibition, then will be transported to Yoshino in October. This is Airbnb going niche, local, as a way to expand their business, which they will take elsewhere too after Japan, after receiving requests for the project from the U.K., China, Korea, Spain, France, and Italy.