Houston: worth a visit! (if you have immediate family there)

If I were in a charitable mood, I might assume that Houston is one of those cities where you have to live for awhile to really appreciate it. Frankly, once you hit a museum or two, there's not much for the tourist. From what I gather, NASA at Johnson space center is only worth a visit if you shell out the $90 for the backstage tour. I'm wondering who goes to Houston on vacation.

However,  for my own predilections, what I enjoyed the most about visiting this city was experiencing the various old neighborhoods. Rice Military, the stretch of Westhiemer through Montrose, parts of Midtown, even the decadent luxury shopping districts.

Yesterday, I accompanied Neri on her errands to wait in various offices. Ended up taking most of the day, but I finished the Angry Birds Star Wars game (actually its amazing and a lot of fun, light sabers, the force, gravity wells, a massive Chewbacca bird). To make it up to me, she took me to get some really good Mexican food at Tacos A Go Go. Fun place too, kind of an overly enthusiastic Mexican kitch diner. Jarritos sodas made into light fixtures, old Mexican movie posters on the walls, a Virgin Mary over the bar.

Afterwards, a trip to Spec's, a huge liquor store/ gourmet grocery store. A wine and beer playground, although I ended up picking up a double walled glass tea infusing mug along with a six pack of Texan beer. By the looks of things, Austin is the nexus of Texan microbreweries.

Driving to the airport this morning, the van was repeatedly inundated with the massive puddles of water standing in the street. Houston has easily the worst street conditions of any city I've ever visited in the US, and that includes post-katrina New Orleans.
I have a feeling that if I can understand why the roads are so bad here, I'll understand this city a lot better. My gut feeling is that its no so much the weather as much as a total lack of maintenance.
I have a theory- the ruling groups of Houston are so conservative, they believe that instead of fixing and maintaining roads (communal benefit) people should just drive high-clearance vehicles and trucks (individualism and self-reliance). Maybe its a phobia of taxes (gasp!) and public spending (not in MY town!). And there are a lot of trucks here.