April 10, 1986

Ever since the neighborhood mouth used to yell ''flatfoot'' to the man with the blue tunic and fallen arches, the police have worn the same kind of shoe -plain, black, hard-soled and often unbearable. The department's notions about style may not have changed, but it is finally sympathetic to weary feet and has given permission to those in the ranks to wear a new kind of shoe - a semisoft-soled model that resembles the kind of black leather shoes worn by basketball referees and coaches. Reaction to the change - detailed officially Tuesday in Interim Order 25 - was immediate.

''READING is an intimate act, perhaps more intimate than any other human act,'' says Harold Brodkey, a writer who has been known to stay home with a good book or even a bad book. He lives on the 14th floor of an Upper West Side apartment building and often reads on a futon that sits on a platform in front of a window. From time to time he glances up from his reading and out the window in order to exercise a different set of eye muscles. He can see birds, clouds in the distance and a little bit of New Jersey. ''Once I saw a hawk kill a pigeon,'' he said. ''Of course, I may have made it up.'' Mr. Brodkey, whose short stories appear in The New Yorker, has two other reading spots - a wing chair, if he is feeling formal, and an early 19th-century country bed, if he is tired. He prefers to read by natural light or in the ''clouds of light'' produced by high-intensity halogen lamps. To ease his back, he tries to remember to vary his reading position at the end of each chap>ter. ''But I like being prone and holding the book up,'' he says. ''These are old habits.

Just as takeover fever gripped the United States last year, Canada is rife these days with news of hostile takeover bids and hastily arranged corporate marriages. In recent weeks powerful investors, including the Reichmann and Belzberg families and Canada's largest tobacco company, have gone after major corporate targets in Canada and the United States. Propelling the recent spate of activity are factors peculiar to Canada that are expected to bring even more merger activity in coming months. ''We've only begun to see the sort of takeover activity we're likely to see in that marketplace,'' said Jeffrey Rosen, managing director of the First Boston Corporation in New York. ''The whole character of the Canadian business scene is being radically changed,'' added William Mackness, vice president and chief economist of the Bank of Nova Scotia.

The New York-New Jersey metropolitan region will gain nearly 600,000 jobs over the next decade and approach what many economists traditionally have considered full employment, according to an economic forecast released yesterday by the Port Authority. The report predicted job increases in the tens of thousands in the Manhattan business district, the four other boroughs and the 12 suburban counties closest to the city on both sides of the Hudson River. With the region's work force projected to increase more slowly than the number of jobs, the report estimated that by 1995 the regional unemployment rate would be less than 5 percent, a drop of roughly 1.5 percentage points from what it is now. Broad Change Envisioned Although there has been recent debate over the question, many economists since the 1960's have considered a 4 percent unemployment rate as one indicating that anyone looking for a job can find one. Those who differ say a somewhat higher rate represents full employment.

The Economy President Reagan reaffirmed his belief that market forces should set oil prices. He also said he could see no differences between his views and those of Vice President Bush. The President said he recognized that low oil prices hurt producing states but that the economy for the most part benefited. [ Page A1. ] Lower interest rates are likely to save the Government as much as $4 billion this fiscal year and $12 billion in fiscal 1987, according to Administration officials and private analysts. [ D2. ]