Purely 1-unrectifiable spaces and locally flat Lipschitz functions

For any compact metric space $M$, we prove that the locally flat Lipschitz functions separate points (of $M$) uniformly if and only if $M$ is purely 1-unrectifiable, resolving a problem posed by Weaver in 1999. We subsequently use this geometric characterization to answer several questions in Lipschitz analysis. Notably, it follows that the Lipschitz-free space $\mathcal{F}(M)$ over a compact metric space $M$ is a dual space if and only if $M$ is purely 1-unrectifiable. Furthermore, for any complete metric space $M$, we deduce that pure 1-unrectifiability actually characterizes some well-known Banach space properties of $\mathcal{F}(M)$ such as the Radon-Nikod\'ym property and the Schur property. A direct consequence is that any complete, purely 1-unrectifiable metric space isometrically embeds into a Banach space with the Radon-Nikod\'ym property. Finally, we provide a solution to a problem of Whitney from 1935 by finding a rectifiability-based characterization of 1-critical compact metric spaces, and we use this characterization to prove the following: a bounded turning tree fails to be 1-critical if and only each of its subarcs has $\sigma$-finite Hausdorff 1-measure.