Not only should you research current AirBnB rates in your very specific area, but getting info on occupancy rates (year round) seems crucial. If you'll only be able to rent for a few days each month, or less, then you could end up increasing your housing costs with this plan. You say that you live in a very walkable area, but is it a very touristy area? For weekly rentals, that's the kind of market you are going to get, most likely. Very few people are going to spend a random week in suburbia unless they are visiting family or friends, in which case they'd stay with those people, not at a rental.
Also, are you going to be comfortable with strangers coming and going in your home, even when you aren't there? If it was a home you owned, you could fairly easily modify it to give you at least some protection from theft (or just nosiness). But a rental makes that a little more difficult.
I think airBnB is great, and I'd do it if I was going to be away from my home for some time so that I wouldn't be there when the renter was, and so that I could prep the home to remove my valuables and personal items. Unless I was in a debt crisis, I wouldn't do it while I was living there.
Have you considered trying to hook up with a university program for foreign students? I had friends that hosted kids in that situation. You'd still have a roommate during the school year, but the rates my friends got were far more than standard rents and they had a vacation from roommates for a few months.