Instead of repurposing shipping containers, repurpose a whole tanker into a popup village. It's a rather fanciful answer to the question of what happens to old oil tankers when global geopolitics and peak oil means they're no longer needed. 

http://www.nextnature.net/2015/06/from-discarded-mega-oil-tanker-to-village/comment-page-1

They'll need to allow for sea level rise when burning the old contents of the ships results in global warming.

I still have a Loompanics book on the shelves called "Free Space" exploring strategies for living space outside traditional nation state jurisdictions. One possibility was taking old tankers, loading them with soil and then scuttling them on one of the Pacific Atolls that lies just beneath the waves to make an instant island. The idea above feels remarkably like this. Then there's the abandoned aircraft carrier arcology from Snowcrash. 

The big problems with all these ideas is the cost of moving the abandoned ship. And the scrap value of the metal. Getting and maintaining control is not going to be cheap.