TROY – When Deanna Dal Pos moved back to the U.S. after living in Europe for a decade, she made a beeline to Saratoga Springs. It was where her parents had settled — joining other residents who make Saratoga County the second fastest growing county in the state.

But then Dal Pos started to miss Europe and a more intense urban environment. To satisfy her itch, she attended a street festival in Troy, a city that is about double the population of Saratoga Springs. It ultimately led to her moving to the Collar City — continuing an unusual trend of migration that is happening from other Capital Region locations to Rensselaer County.

While Saratoga still has one of the strongest population growths in New York state, Rensselaer is the only county in the Capital Region for which residents chose to leave Saratoga, according to the county-to-county migration flows tracked by the U.S. Census Bureau. It's been happening for the last several years.

Click here for an interactive map showing county-to-county migrations.

In fact, county-to-county migration patterns show Rensselaer is the only one of the four core Capital Region counties that has a positive flow of people moving in from Albany, Saratoga and Schenectady counties combined.

Between 2012 and 2016, Rensselaer County saw 307 more residents move in from Saratoga County than it lost to Saratoga County, according to five-year estimates tabulated as part of the American Community Survey.

"People were looking at me like I was insane. Why would you want to leave Saratoga," said Dal Pos, who now sells commercial real estate in Troy. She lives on River Street overlooking the Hudson River.

"Troy has a more funky, downtown feeling. I get to be in Europe every day," she said.

There are many reasons people opt for Rensselaer County, explained Mark Castiglione, executive director of the Capital District Regional Planning Commission. Troy is enjoying its urban renaissance, which is attractive to many people who now want to live in a city, Castiglione said.

There's also the shorter commute into Albany, which remains the region's employment center. Plus, Castiglione said an employment boom at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals in East Greenbush is providing a new location for high-tech employees that competes with GlobalFoundries in Malta.

The U.S. has 3,142 counties. The Capital Region's four core counties only see people moving to or from 10 percent of those 3,142 counties nationwide, according to a review of the U.S. Census Bureau's 2012-16 five-year estimates for the American Community Survey.

Locally, Albany County saw more people move to and from other counties across the country, than the other core counties in the region. Residents moved back and forth between 324 counties. Albany County gained residents from 140 counties and lost people to the rest.

In the other local counties, Rensselaer County gained residents from 141 counties as it saw residential movement with 249 counties. Saratoga County gained residents from 115 counties out of 291 counties. And Schenectady County gained population from 67 counties out of 206 counties.

In the local movement, Rensselaer County gained people from the other three counties with 419 residents moving in from Albany; 96 from Schenectady and 307 from Saratoga.

Among the other counties, Saratoga saw 638 people come from Schenectady and 458 from Albany. Schenectady County too gained people from Albany County as 342 moved in.

Albany County lost residents to the other three counties. Typically, what lures residents away is housing, new jobs, schools, lower taxes and personal considerations, Castiglione said.

The census county-to-county data also shows that Saratoga County gains residents from South Carolina. Those 737 people from three South Carolina counties reflect the movement of sailors headed north to the U.S. Navy's Nuclear Power Training Unit to train at the Kesselring site in Milton.

This is unlike the typical migration in which New York state loses population to Southern and Western states. The state lost 452,580 residents recently, with Florida luring 63,700 and California 34,300 former New Yorkers, according to the census bureau.

The region's migration numbers are small when compared to larger counties nationally. Los Angeles County saw 312,000 people move out in the past year, which is more residents than the 307,117 residing in Albany County.