Though he covers a wide variety of topics that inform his teaching and his work with student media, more recently his reporting has concentrated on economic and urban planning trends as the United States struggles with deindustrialization and shrinking cities. He is the author of Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City, published by the University of California Press in 2013. Teardown was named a Michigan Notable Book and fimmaker Michael Moore called it "a brilliant chronicle of the Mad Maxization of a once-great American city." Young earned an Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) award for Magazine Writing and was nominated for a James Beard Food & Drink Award. In addition to teaching journalism courses, he advises the university's student newspaper, yearbook, and community radio station.