One of the most fundamental challenges facing the Republic of the Marshall Islands is changing regional organization, with population and economic resources becoming increasingly concentrated at two urban centers. Present national planning objectives focus upon developing the means to accommodate these centers. But such development strategies often encounter difficulties, for centralization on the order currently found in the Marshalls has neither historic nor sociocultural precedent. In this study regional change in the Marshall Islands is examined in terms of demographic development, and regional evolution assessed through complementary statistical measures of spatial autocorrelation, point-to-point temporal association, and spatio-temporal association. It is concluded that the current regional imbalance in population and human resources in the Marshalls represents a significant break from past trends which may well be unsustainable. Alternative regional planning strategies are suggested which appeal to the historic and sociocultural foundations of the area.
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