As a kid in the late 1990s, Tyler Smith used to run around in the woods surrounding his family home in Autumnwood.
It was a natural playground of thick century trees right behind Rockland Drive with roaming deer, wily coyotes, foxes and owls. A city of wildlife in northeast Charlotte.
But that 150-acre sanctuary, which Smith enjoyed for almost 30 years, is gone. Right now, it’s a plot of nothing. A flat field of red dirt emits dust clouds amid the chugging and rumbling sounds of 80,000-pound trucks…