Suburban design has clearly reached its sad and tragic end, but finding a way to make something out of the mess it’s left behind all over North America and the world is a massive and intimidating project. It seems as though for every suburb there’s an environmentally-sensitive plan for how things could be better. Well, ReBurbia is currently hosting a competition between the designers of 20 Green Visions of Futuristic Suburbs that propose retrofitting sprawling neighborhoods to be more environmentally sound and foster greater quality of life.

We couldn’t really pick a favorite because they’re all amazing, but we really enjoyed Brian Alessi’s plan, pictured at right, to create medians on over-wide suburban streets for communal gardens, compost centers and community spaces. Dubbed Regenrative Suburban Median, the project is much more realistic and feasible than some of the others (biothermal cities in the sky, comuting sky pods, highways turned into wind farms, etc.), and its benefits would likely acrue much more quickly than those lofty ideas. Click here to check out all the entries in the competition.

(via i09)