Public utilities provide electric, gas, water or telephone service to customers in a specified area. Utilities have a duty to provide safe and adequate service on reasonable terms to anyone who lives within the service area on without discriminating between customers. Because most utilities operate in near monopolistic conditions, they can be heavily regulated by local, state, and federal authorities. Generally, the local and state agencies are called Public Service Commissions (PSC) or Public Utility Commissions (PUC). Municipal Utilities and Rural Electric Cooperatives may be unregulated though.
Metairie is a census-designated place (CDP) in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, United States. Adjacent to New Orleans, Metairie is the largest community in Jefferson Parish. It is an unincorporated area that would be larger than most of the state's cities if it were incorporated. The zip codes that serve the community are 70001-70006. The original spelling, Métairie, is the French language term for a tenant farm which paid the landlord with a share of the produce, as this was the main activity of the area from the 1760s to the 1930s.