DOICEŞTI, Romania — Constantin Stroe is hopeful again.
Growing up in an apartment facing the sprawling 40-hectare coal power plant complex that was once the beating heart of his native Șotânga, the small-town mayor of 24 years saw the devastation wrought on locals after the site slowly laid off its 3,000 workers and shut up shop a decade ago.
“There was a total collapse, a lack of trust in the future because they had no prospects on anything,” he said, between long drags of a cigarette in his snug municipal office that sits surrounded by vacant leafy roads and crumbling brick houses.
A quarter of the working population soon deserted the town of 7,000, which lies north-west of Bucharest. “Families … were torn apart,” he said. “Some remained, some went to work abroad.”
