Why Southern California offers lessons about the challenges and opportunities of meeting the nationwide demand for distribution space. : Even if Southern California’s real estate markets sometimes seem like outliers to those elsewhere in the U.S., this dynamic region has much to tell us about the trends shaping the entire country. In the past 17 years, the Southland’s five biggest counties—Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside and San Diego—have experienced collective population growth of more than 15 percent.