the reason these steel boxes win the prize is simple: They are dirt cheap. Construction works out to $8/sq ft. Find something cheaper. You won’t.
The economy of scale was acheived on these a long time ago.
I’ll be an optimist here. Once installed, people’s sense of design will take over. The low cost leaves lots of room for expense on landscaping to break up their angular and ugly appearance. Give this time, I think this could be a winner in the struggle over low income housing. So long as they can fight the rust, too, maintenance costs should be very low for these metal boxes.
Another reason is that we do not produce enough stuff to ship back containers full of goods.
We buy stuff from the new manufacturing powerhouse that is China, and send back NOTHING. What we do sell there, is often produced there.
So rather than send back empty containers, it becomes cheaper to sell them in the USA for the difference in the price of sending them back empty and convincing the rats of Detroit that they make lovely ‘homes’.