Earlier this week, we got a chance to chat with Steven Gray via Skype. Gray is a Time magazine correspondent based in Time Inc.‘s new Detroit bureau, established earlier this year in a house in the Motor City.

Gray is the only person living full time in the house, but many reporters from across the company come and go to work on stories as part of Assignment Detroit. The project is year-long commitment to living in and reporting from the city, with reports appearing in various Time Inc. publications and Web sites, including Time magazine, Time.com, Fortune, Fortune.com, CNNMoney.com, Sports Illustrated, SI.com, Money and Essence magazine.

Gray gave us some background on the project, talked about what he’s been working on and told us what it’s like to live and work in the house/bureau. In the clip above, he talks about covering Detroit and blogging for Time.com. “Detroit offers one of the few places in the country where I can write about all of the issues that I care about personally, in terms of writing about society and politics and business and the economy,” Gray said. “So why not Detroit?”

More of our interview with Gray, after the jump

Related: Time Inc. Launches Assignment Detroit

How many people are involved in this project? Do you have any sense of how the city of Detroit feels about Time’s focus there?

What has surprised you about living and working in Detroit?