How to mark toponyms of a city (not districts)

In few words: how to draw a polygon and make its name visible up to scale 13?

In many cities, there are parts that are former villeages, and even though they’re now parts of the cities, completely re-planned and rebuilt, they still keep old names and sometimes have clear boundaries. The locals often use these names, not street names, nor districts. They’re often written on public transports.

These names should be seen on higher scales, <15, so that a non-local could find them easily. In many cases it’s better to draw their contours to mark the distinction. (In my city, there are 2 villeages now part of the city, that are often confused, and I thought of them as interchangeable until I saw their scheme.)

But here’s the issue: if you put a node (place=suburb, is_in=, name=…), it will show at scale >=13, but you lose accuracy (can’t draw its boundaries). If you draw it as a polygon, it will be accurate, but will be seen on scale >=15, which is too narrow, a non-local won’t find a toponym that he’s uncertain of.

How to deal with this? How can one both (1) draw a boundary, and (2) make it visible up to scale 13?

(I suppose the visibility range of polygons’ names was a subject of a long debate and a consensus, which I myself can’t question. I know there can be other rendering systems, but it’s better to do this in current OSM.)

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Mapnik#Bugs_and_rendering_suggestions
For Osmarender use: http://trac.openstreetmap.org/

I guess it’s http://trac.openstreetmap.org/ticket/2090