When you imagine what West Seattle was like in 1907 and look around today, it nearly blows the mind to think of the vast changes in the next 100 years.

Will we be using the West Seattle Bridge, still, with its soaring beauty of today or will there be a sleek 22nd century monorail whisking us all around the region? Will Sound Transit manage to get finished and then merge with the monorail to provide real transportation mobility all over the megametropolis of 8 million?

Will our power come from the atom, with clean, safe nuclear energy allowing the remaining dinosaurs, and their pools, to remain underground?

Will the water taxis of 2107 be so fast and sleek that they will not clutter the bay and still make the trip in seconds?

Will our air be clean, pure and sweet, with climate change a scare we avoided by taking rational action way back in 2008? Will the water still gush from our taps, abundant and pure and clean?

Will all of our people get health care, from the tiniest infant to the oldest of our people, and will it come in a way that no one has to suffer deprivation? Will we have healthy, pure food for all of our people, even that food from China?

Will we have finally repaired our relations with the other nations of our now tiny world so that Americans are no longer looked at with scorn, fear and hate? Will being an American again be something to be proud of?

Will we have put aside our petty political differences to solve problems and prepare for the next 100 years, to look forward to West Seattle in 2207?

If not, why not?

- Jack Mayne