Once a thriving industrial center, the region has been renewed as a diverse community, but one that has never lost its small town appeal. With a vibrant "destination uptown", numerous cultural and recreational opportunities, a first class education system, and a varied, technologically advanced economy, Martinsville has consistently ranked for over a decade among the top cities under 25,000 in which to live in the Southeast. Near both the Blue Ridge Mountains and the metropolitan areas of Virginia's Roanoke Valley and North Carolina's Piedmont Triad, Martinsville-Henry County offers the best of tightly knit, less expensive, neighborly life with easy access to the temptations of the urban cities.