The Lipschitz-free space over a length space is locally almost square but never almost square (Q2112046)

Let \(X\) be a Banach space with unit sphere \(S_X\). Then \(X\) is said to be almost square if for every \(\varepsilon >0\) and every finite subset \(\{x_1,\ldots,x_n\}\) of \(S_X\) there exists \(y \in S_X\) such that \(\|x_i \pm y\| \le 1+ \varepsilon\) for every \(i=1,\ldots,n\). If this only holds for subsets of cardinality~$1$, then \(X\) is locally almost square. The authors study these properties in Lipschitz-free spaces and the main result is already in the title. It is shown that a Lipschitz-free space \(F(M)\) is locally almost square if and only if the underlying metric space \(M\) is a length space. There are several known characterizations of when a complete metric spaces \(M\) is a length space. For example \(F(M)\) has the Daugavet property if and only if \(M\) is a length space. On the other hand it is also shown that there does not exist any metric space \(M\) such that \(F(M)\) is almost square. In fact, the authors show something a bit stronger.