So searching for a point within a polygon is quite simple in mysql, doing something like this:
SELECT * FROM table
WHERE ST_CONTAINS(ST_GEOMFROMTEXT('POLYGON((-72.0429540 42.9949644, -72.0405293 42.9929398, -72.0401645 42.9905541, -72.0353365 42.9888747, -72.0326543 42.9897850, -72.0343494 42.9935990, -72.0344567 42.9969733, -72.0367098 42.9980562, -72.0417953 42.9970361, -72.0429540 42.9949644))'), POINT(lat, long))
But let's say I wanted to also find items that are within 1 mile of the border of my polygon. Is there a simple way to this in mysql? My other line of thinking was that maybe I can somehow calculate new points for my polygon, but I'm not sure how I would go about knowing the direction to expand in.